LIBRARY 


UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA. 


GIFT  OF 

V    ^ 


THE   FAMILY  OF  REV.  DR.  GEORGE  MOOAR 

Class 


.  ''  ffl  ,  •  .-• 


•  .  '.-., ' 


MEMORIAL 

it 


SAMUEL  HARVEY  TAYLOR 


COMPILED  BY  HIS  LAST  CLASS. 


ANDOVER: 

WARREN     F.    DRAPER. 
1871. 


Entered,  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1871,  by 

WARREN    F.    DRAPER, 
In  the  Office  of  the  Librarian  of  Congress,  at  Washington. 


Rand,  A v>ry,  &?  Frye,  Printers,  Boston. 


TO 


MRS.     S.     H.     TAYLOR, 

OUR     CONSTANT     FRIEND, 


IS     INSCRIBED. 


12307? 


RESOLUTION. 


AT  a  meeting,  of  the  SENIOR  CLASS  in  PHILLIPS  ACADEMY,  held 
Feb.  27,  1871,  the  following  resolution  was  unanimously  adopted  :  — 

WHEREAS,  We  wish  to  render  an  humble  tribute  to  our  devoted 
Instructor,  the  late  Dr.  S.  H.  TAYLOR  ; 

RESOLVED,  That  a  Committee  of  five  be  appointed  to  confer  with 
the  friends  of  the  deceased,  and,  if  in  accordance  with  their  wishes,  to 
publish  a  Memorial  Volume. 

H.  S.  VAN  DUZER,     1 

C.  F.  CUTTER, 

CHARLES   ISHAM,      [  Committee. 

C.  F.  THWING, 

F.  C.  S.   BARTLETT,  j 


CONTENTS. 


i. 

ADDRESS  BY  PROFESSOR  EDWARDS  A.  PARK     .  .        .        9 

II. 

SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SCRIPTURES,  READ  BY  PROFESSOR  JOHN 

L.  TAYLOR 55 

III. 
SERMON  BY  PROFESSOR  J.  W.  CHURCHILL       .        .        .        .61 

N 

IV. 
APPENDIX 105 

RESOLUTIONS   BY  THE   MEMBERS    OF   THE   ACADEMY,  AND   BY   THE 

ALUMNI. 

NOTE  A.  —  CIRCUMSTANCES  OF  DR.  TAYLOR'S  DEATH. 
NOTE  B. —  REMINISCENCES  OF  A  PUPIL  OF  DR.  TAYLOR. 
NOTE  C.  —  ACCOUNT  OF  THE  FUNERAL  SERVICES. 


MEMORIAL  ADDRESS. 

BY  PROF.  EDWARDS  A.  PARK. 


IT  is  told  of  Saladin,  the  champion  of  Is- 
lam ism,  that —  after  he  had  retaken  the  Holy 
City;  subjugated  numerous  fortresses  in  Syria, 
Arabia,  Persia,  and  Mesopotamia;  performed 
so  many  exploits  in  the  crusades  as  to  be 
designated  "  the  Great  "  —  he  was  seized  with  a 
disorder  which  threatened  to  wither  up  at  once 
all  his  garlands  of  victory.  When  he  saw  that 
death  was  inevitable,  he  called  his  herald  who 
used  to  carry  his  banner  before  him,  took  his 
lance  which  had  so  often  been  shaken  in 

NOTE.  —  This  address  was  delivered  on  the  2d  of  February,  1871, 
in  the  large  hall  of  Phillips  Academy.  As  the  author  was  absent  from 
Andover  on  the  sabbath  of  Dr.  Taylor's  decease,  Jan.  29,  and  as 
he  could  not  begin  to  write  the  address  until  the  following  Tuesday, 
and  was  obliged  to  deliver  it  on  the  next  Thursday,  he  has  added  a 
few  sentences  which  he  had  not  time  to  insert  in  the  original  manu- 
script. 


10 


battle,  tied  his  shroud  to  the  top  of  his  lance, 
and  then  said  to  the  herald,  u  Go  unfurl  this 
shroud  in  the  camp.  It  is  the  flag  of  the  day. 
Wave  it  in  the  air,  and  proclaim,  '  This  is  all 
that  remains  of  Saladin  the  Great,  the  con- 
queror, the  king  of  the  empire ;  all  that 
remains  of  all  his  glory!"  But,  when  a  good 
man  dies,  we  cannot  say  that  all  which  remains 
of  him  is  the  coffin  and  the  shroud.  He  has 
lived  in  his  thoughts  and  deeds ;  he  still  lives 
in  the  remembrance  of  them.  They  are  like 
seeds  planted  by  the  water-courses  :  they  spring 
up,  and  bear  fruit ;  and  he  lives  in  their  peren- 
nial life. 

When  George  Whitefield  died,  he  did  not 
pass  away  from  among  men :  he  lived  in 
those  of  his  survivors  whose  character  he  had 
improved.  He  preached  one  sermon  in  the 
native  town  of  the  friend  who  has  just  left  us  ; 
and  one  of  our  friend's  ancestors  was  morally 
transformed  by  the  instrumentality  of  that 
sermon.  That  ancestor  exerted  a  marked 
influence  on  the  mother  of  Dr.  Taylor,  and 
she  exerted  an  obvious  influence  on  him  :  so 
that  there  is  one  important  sense  in  which 


1 1 


George  Whitefield  has  been  living  through  the 
last  three  and  thirty  years  in  Phillips  Academy. 
There  is  more  than  one  important  sense  in 
which  he  that  believeth  in  Christ  shall  never 
die. 

In  the  latter  part  of  "the  seventeenth  cen- 
tury, in  consequence  of  the  persecutions  of  the 
Covenanters,  a  company  of  devout  Scotchmen 
left  their  homes  for  the  north  of  Ireland.  In 
the  year  1719,  sixteen  families  of  these  devoted 
pioneers  came  to  this  land,  and  established 
themselves  in  the  old  township  of  London- 
derry, New  Hampshire.  During  that  and  the 
following  year,  more  than  four  times  their 
number  joined  them  in  the  new  colony.  Mr. 
Horace  Greeley,  one  of  their  descendants,  says, 
"  They  were  eminently  men  of  conviction. 
They  saw  clearly,  they  reasoned  fearlessly,  and 
they  did  not  hesitate  to  follow  wherever  truth 
led  the  way.  I  presume,"  he  adds,  "  more 
teachers  now  living  trace  their  descent  to  the 
Scotch-Irish  pioneers  of  Londonderry  than  to 
an  equal  number  anywhere  else." 1  One  of 

1  The  hearty  and  life-long  interest  which  Dr.  Taylor  cherished  in  his 
native  town  was  constantly  strengthened  by  the  history  of  the  men  who 


12 


these  Londonderry  emigrants  was  Matthew 
Taylor.  He  held  the  title-deed  of  his  farm 
from  Lieutenant-Governor  John  Wentworth ; 
and  that  farm  had  been  previously  owned  by 
John  Leverett,  Governor  of  Massachusetts 
Colony.  On  that  ancestral  land,  now  within 
the  township  of  Derry,  lived  and  died  Mat- 
descended  from  its  first  settlers.  Among  the  teachers  thus  descended 
are  Presidents  McKeen  of  Bowdoin,  and  Aiken  of  Union  College  ; 
Professors  Jarvis  Gregg,  W.  A.  Packard ;  Joseph  McKeen,  Rev. 
James  Means.  Among  the  clergymen  are  Rev.  David  McGregor,  son 
of  the  first  pastor  of  the  town  (Rev.  James  McGregor),  and  ancestor 
of  a  large  and  distinguished  family  ;  Rev.  Samuel  Taggart  of  Coleraine, 
Massachusetts  ;  Rev  James  Miltimore  of  Newburyport ;  Rev.  Rufus 
Anderson  of  Wenham,  "  who  at  the  close  of  his  life  was  preparing  an 
historical  work  on  Modern  Missions  to  the  Heathen,"  and  whose  son, 
Rev.  Dr.  Rufus  Anderson  of  Boston,  is  the  historian  of  the  missions 
under  the  care  of  the  A.  B.  C.  F.  M.  ;  Rev.  Silas  McKeen  of  Brad- 
ford, Vermont ;  Rev.  Dr.  Morrison  ;  Rev.  James  T.  McCollom. 
Among  the  jurists  and  statesmen  are  John  Bell,  member  of  the  Pro- 
vincial Congress  ;  John  and  Samuel  Bell,  both  governors  of  New 
Hampshire  ;  Judge  Jeremiah  Smith.  Among  the  military  men  are  Gen- 
eral George  Reid  and  General  John  Stark.  Of  the  Londonderry  immi- 
grants and  their  posterity  who  have  attained  distinction  in  other  States 
the  number  is  not  known  ;  but,  "  of  those  who  have  become  eminent 
in  New  Hampshire,  six  have  been  governors  of  the  State ;  nine  have 
been  members  of  Congress.;  five,  judges  of  the  Supreme  Court ;  two, 
members  of  the  Provincial  Congress  ;  and  one  of  these  was  a  signer 
of  the  Declaration  of  Independence."  —  REV.  E.  L.  PARKER  :  History 
of  Londonderry. 


13 

thew  Taylor.  There  were  born  his  children, 
and  many  of  his  children's  children.  There 
Samuel  Harvey  Taylor,  a  descendant  of  the 
fourth  generation  from  Matthew,  was  born,  on 
the  3d  of  October,  I8O7.1  His  father,  Cap- 
tain James  Taylor,  was  a  man  of  sterling 
integrity  and  high  Christian  principle.  He 
was  for  a  long  time  a  deacon  of  the  church  in 
Derry,  as  his  son  has  been  for  a  long  time  a 
deacon  of  the  church  on  this  hill.  He  was 
obliged  to  be  absent  from  home  during  a  large 
part  of  Samuel  Harvey's  childhood  and  youth  ; 
and  therefore,  even  at  the  age  of  eight  years, 
our  lamented  friend  was  called  to  discharge  a 

1  The  original  settlers  of  Londonderry,  New  Hampshire,  emigrated 
from  the  city  or  the  neighborhood  of  Londonderry  in  Ireland.  When 
that  city  was  besieged  in  1688  by  the  troops  of  Lord  Antrim,  defend- 
ing the  cause  of  James  against  William,  Prince  of  Orange,  and  when 
some  of  these  troops  approached  the  city  gate,  and  demanded  that  it 
be  opened,  thirteen  young  men,  fearing  that  the  mayor  and  some  of 
the  citizens  would  be  treasonable,  "  rushed  to  the  main  guard,  seized 
the  keys,  after  a  slight  opposition,  drew  up  the  bridge,  and  locked  the 
gate  just  as  the  soldiers  were  about  to  enter  "  ( Rev.  E.  L.  Parker's 
"  History  of  Londonderry,  "  pp.  10,  1 1).  One  of  these  young  men  was 
named  Samuel  Harvey.  This  fact  suggested  the  Christian  name  of 
Dr.  Taylor,  one  of  whose  maternal  ancestors  had  the  maiden  name  of 
Harvey,  and  perhaps  belonged  to  the  family  of  the  resolute  young 
hero  of  Londonderry. 


series  of  duties  which  are  not  ordinarily 
expected  of  early  boyhood.  At  the  age  of 
fourteen  years,  the  conduct  of  two  extensive 
farms  was,  in  large  measure,  committed  to  him. 
He  superintended  the  workmen,  he  mingled  in 
their  labors,  and  learned  thus  early  in  life  the 
principles  of  secular  business,  the  art  of  gov- 
ernment, and  the  details  of  hard  work.  Even 
then  his  industry  and  energy  qualified  him  to 
exact  the  same  traits  from  the  men  whom  he 
employed.  His  example  justified  his  tones  of 
command ;  and  his  tones  were  singularly  ef- 
fectual. 

He  who  understands  one  thing  knows  many 
others  ;  and,  by  learning  the  processes  of  agri- 
culture and  the  methods  of  dealing  with  busi- 
ness-men, our  friend  prepared  himself  for  the 
large  variety  of  miscellaneous  affairs  which  he 
was  called  to  manage  in  various  departments  of  • 
life.  Until  the  age  of  eighteen,  he  intended 
and  expected  to  cultivate  his  ancestral  acres.  He 
had  been  accustomed  to  rise  often  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning,  and  to  labor  with  unre- 
mitted  diligence  through  the  day,  and  had 
gained  a  hardihood  of  constitution  which  prom- 


15 

ised  a  long  life  of  manual  toil.  It  did  give  him 
a  life  singularly  free  from  physical  pain.  But, 
in  consequence  of  being  thrown  from  a  wagon, 
he  lost,  in  some  degree,  his  power  of  physical 
endurance  ;  and  he  decided  to  pursue  a  literary 
life.  In  his  mature  age^,  whenever  he  passed 
the  scene  of  this  accident,  he  was  accustomed 
to  say,  "  Here  I  began  my  education."  That 
one  fall  from  a  wagon  has  resulted  in  his  affect- 
ing the  character  of  six  thousand  pupils. 

From  his  early  childhood  he  had  manifested 
a  passion  for  books  ;  and  it  was  now  with  in- 
tense delight  that  he  began  to  prepare  himself 
for  college.  He  entered  Pinkerton  Academy, 
in  his  native  town,  and  studied  with  his  char- 
acteristic vehemence.  Being  unwilling  to  lose 
the  time  which  that  academy  devoted  to  a  va- 
cation, he  spent  one  vacation,  at  least,  in  At- 
kinson Academy ;  and  rejoined  the  school  of 
his  native  town  at  the  commencement  of  the 
new  term.  Thus  at  the  beginning,  as  through 
the  progress,  of  his  literary  life,  he  kept  himself 
under  discipline.  He  prepared  himself  to  enter 
the  sophomore  class  of  Dartmouth  College, 
after  only  two  years  of  academic  study.  The 


i6 


winter  vacations  of  his  college-life  he  spent  in 
teaching  district  schools.  Still  he  was  graduat- 
ed with  honor  in  the  class  of  1832.' 

While  at  Hanover,  he  began  his  distinctively 
religious  life.  When  he  entered  the  college,  he 
intended  to  be  a  physician ;  when  he  left  it,  he 
intended  to  be  a  minister  of  the  gospel.  He 
came  at  once  to  Andover,  and  entered  the 
Theological  Seminary  in  the  autumn  of  1832. 
Professor  Stuart  and  Dr.  Edward  Robinson 
often  expressed  their  admiration  of  his  zeal 
and  accuracy  in  his  Hebrew  and  Greek  studies. 
Dr.  Woods  was  pleased  with  his  patient  thought 
and  conservative  tendencies ;  for,  throughout 
his  life,  Dr.  Taylor  cherished  the  principles  and 
habits  of  conservatism.  As  a  theological  stu- 
dent, he  was  animated  with  a  missionary  spirit; 
and  he  earnestly  deliberated  on  the  question  of 
devoting  his  life  to  the  foreign  service. 

He    had   acquired   such    a   reputation    as  a 

1  Rev.  Dr.  Noyes,  professor  in  Dartmouth  College,  where  he  was  a 
classmate  of  Mr.  Taylor  in  1829-32,  has  made  valuable  suggestions 
to  the  writer  in  regard  to  the  worth  of  his  associate,  and  says,  "  The 
friends  of  his  early  years  who  survive  him  will  cherish  his  memory 
with  the  warmest  affection.  His  name  will  long  be  associated  with  this 
college  as  one  of  the  most  useful  and  honored  of  her  sons." 


scholar  and  a  teacher,  that  Mr.  Osgood  John- 
son, then  the  accomplished  principal  of  Phillips 
Academy,  and  a  man  of  the  rarest  gifts  and 
graces,  was  importunate  in  his  solicitations 
that  Mr.  Taylor  would  become  an  assistant  in 
the  school.  In  1834,  our  friend  yielded  to 
the  request  of  Mr.  Johnson.  He  was  so  em- 
inently successful  in  his  work,  that,  after  he 
had  spent  more  than  a  year  in  it,  he  was 
invited  to  take  the  permanent  office  of  as- 
sistant principal  in  the  academy.  He  de- 
clined the  invitation.  His  pupils  met  in  a 
field  or  in  a  grove,  and  passed  a  unanimous 
vote  urging  the  trustees  to  renew  their  invi- 
tation, and  urging  him  to  accept  it ;  but  he  in- 
sisted on  declining  it,  and  soon  entered  on  a 
tutorship  at  Dartmouth  College,  He  remained 
in  this  office  through  the  collegiate  year  of 
1836  and  1837.  He  had  been  "approbated" 
to  preach  the  gospel ;  and,  while  laboring  at  the 
college  during  the  week,  he  was  accustomed  to 
labor  in  some  pulpit  on  the  sabbath.  He  was 
then  an  acceptable  preacher,  and  was  urged  to 
take  the  pastorate  of  an  important  church  in 
New  Hampshire.  His  tutorship  also  was  emi- 


i8 


nently  successful.  Once  he  invited  members 
of  his  class  to  meet  him  for  the  purpose  of  en- 
gaging in  a  voluntary  study  of  the  Greek 
preposition.  He  did  not  expect  that  more  than 
ten  or  twelve  would  let  their  zeal  for  the  clas- 
sics carry  them  beyond  the  requisitions  of 
college-law.  He  was  surprised  to  find  that 
nearly  the  whole  class  accepted  his  invitation  ; 
and,  after  preparing  himself  for  his  regular  ex- 
ercises, he  spent  four  hours  every  day  in  pre- 
paring himself  for  this  voluntary  exercise, 
which  was  made  interesting  to  his  pupils  by  his 
enthusiasm  in  it.  Amid  all  these  miscellaneous 
duties  of  his  tutorship  at  Hanover,  he  still 
prosecuted  his  theological  studies ;  spent  his 
winter  vacation  at  Andover  as  a  member  of  the 
senior  class  in  the  seminary ;  received  the 
regular  diploma  in  the  autumn  of  1837  ;  and  in 
the  same  autumn,  having  previously  declined 
an  invitation  to  teach  in  a  New-England  city, 
he  commenced  his  duties  as  the  principal  of 
Phillips  Academy. 

The  first  principal  of  this  academy  was  Dr. 
Eliphalet  Pearson ;  the  fourth  principal  was 
Dr.  John  Adams :  both  of  them  were  highly 


19 

distinguished  men,  and  both  strict  disciplinari- 
ans. They  introduced  a  rigid  government  as 
a  characteristic  of  the  school ;  and,  when  the 
trustees  appointed  Mr.  Taylor  as  principal, 
they  intended  and  expected  that  he  would  be 
faithful  to  the  traditions  of  the  office.  He  was 
constitutionally  fitted  for  a  disciplinarian.  He 
had  an  instinct  of  government.  This  had  been 
strengthend  in  his  boyhood.  All  men  are  not 
qualified  for  the  same  method  of  action.  Every 
man  must  pursue  that  method  for  which  God 
has  adapted  him.  "  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  the 
herb  yielding  seed  after  his  kind,  and  the  tree 
yielding  fruit  after  his  kind"  was  the  original 
law  of  Nature.  The  oak  was  not  to  bear  roses, 
and  the  eglantine  was  not  to  send  forth  the 
gnarled  branches  of  the  oak.  Professor  Pat- 
terson, now  a  senator  at  Washington,  one  of 
the  descendants  of  the  Londonderry  colonists, 
says,  "  Profound  convictions,  an  inflexible  will, 
and  strong  sensibilities,  are  the  natural  inherit- 
ance of  our  people."  Dr.  Taylor  shared  largely 
in  this  inheritance.  He  had  a  stern  conscience, 
a  keen  sense  of  duty,  a  deep  regard  for  obliga- 
tion. It  was  his  firm  belief  that  men  in  the 


20 

4 

learned  professions  would  accomplish  more 
than  they  now  do,  if  they  were  more  regular  in 
their  habits  of  study,  if  they  had  their  fixed 
hours  for  intellectual  toil :  he  therefore  deemed 
it  his  duty  to  insist  on  strict  regularity  in  his 
school.  The  future  usefulness  of  his  pupils 
required  it.  He  believed  that  one  of  the  dan- 
gers to  which  this  democratic  land  lies  exposed 
is  a  disrespect  for  law :  he  therefore  believed 
that  he  was  performing  an  act  of  kindness  to 
his  pupils  when  he  was  accustoming  them  to 
obey.  He  believed,  that,  if  they  would  yield 
their  wills  to  the  authority  of  a  school,  they 
would  more  easily  yield  their  individual  inter- 
ests to  the  civil  government,  and  would  be 
more  apt  to  prostrate  themselves  before  the  In- 
finite Ruler  and  Sovereign.  He  believed  that 
indolence  is  not  only  a  besetting  sin  of  men, 
but  the  parent  of  a  numerous  progeny  of  other 
sins :  he  regarded  himself,  therefore,  as  per- 
forming an  act  of  kindness  for  his  scholars, 
whenever  he  broke  up  their  habits  of  idleness. 
He  loved  labor;  he  had  inured  himself  to  it; 
he  required  of  others  no  harder  tasks  than  he 
had  performed  himself.  He  was  apt  to  wonder 


21 


that  any  of  his  pupils  did  not  love  what  he 
loved,  and  was  consequently  more  willing  to 
require  by  law  those  duties,  which,  when  habit- 
ual, would  be  a  source  of  delight.  Being 
himself  enamoured  of  study,  he  was  surprised 
when  any  of  his  pupils  had  not  a  similar  pas- 
sion for  science  and  literature;  he  was  thus  the 
more  willing  to  raise  the  strong  arm  of  author- 
ity, and  to  exact  those  habits  of  thought  and 
reading  which  form  the  dignity  of  manhood 
and  the  solace  of  old  age  :  he  was  conscien- 
tious in  the  belief  that  classical  learning  is 
important  for  the  welfare  of  our  republic ;  that 
our  statesmen  should  be  imbued  with  a  love 
for  the  great  writers  of  antiquity ;  that  our 
popular  literature  should  be  permeated  with 
the  elegance  and  the  grace  which  come  from 
intimate  communion  with  the  sages  and  the 
poets  of  Greece  and  Rome.  He  therefore  be- 
lieved that  he  was  discharging  the  duties  of  a 
good  citizen  and  a  patriot,  when  he  was  holding 
up  a  high  standard  of  classical  learning,  and 
urging  young  men  up  to  that  standard,  himself 
leading  the  way  in  the  laborious  ascent,  and 
demanding  that  his  pupils  follow  him.  These 


22 


were  the  principles  on  which  he  began  and 
continued  and  ended  his  course  as  the  head 
master  of  Phillips  Academy. 

It  need  not,  as  it  cannot,  be  said  that  he  was 
immaculate  in  following  out  these  principles. 
With  all  his  dignity  and  authority  he  was  a 
modest  man.1  He  did  not  claim  to  be  perfect, 
he  only  cherished  the  humble  but  assured  trust 
that  the  main  principles  of  his  government  were 
in  accordance  with  the  spirit  of  good  citizenship, 
sound  learning,  and  rational  piety.  His  self- 
distrust  was  not  always  understood.  It  has 
been  noticed,  that  a  man  of  moral  courage 
sometimes  assumes  an  authoritative  manner  in 
order  to  resist  or  conceal  his  constitutional 
diffidence.  Dr.  Taylor  has  been  known  to 
speak  a  word  of  command  with  great  reluc- 
tance, and  to  speak  it  in  a  tone  more  manda- 
tory than  he  would  have  employed  if  he  had 
not  desired  to  overcome  his  native  bashfulness. 

It  need  not,  as  it  cannot,  be  said  that  he  had 
all  the  qualifications  of  an  eminent  teacher. 

1  "  I  have  great  reason  to  condemn  myself  that  I  have  done  so  little 
to  secure  the  great  end  for  which  I  was  created."  This  is  a  specimen 
of  the  self-depreciating  remarks  with  which  his  private  letters  abound. 


23 

He  counted  not  himself  to  have  apprehended, 
but,  until  the  last  day  of  his  life,  he  pressed 
forward  that  he  might  attain,  the  completeness 
for  the  want  of  which  he  sighed.  It  is  enough 
to  say  that  he  had  some  remarkable  qualifica- 
tions for  a  good  instructor.  Let  us  meditate 
on  a  few  of  them. 

He  united  accuracy  in  the  details  of  classical 
literature  with  an  enthusiasm  in  its  general 
spirit.  Accuracy  is  essential  to  the  success  of 
a  teacher,  but  does  not  insure  it.  Our  friend 
was  correct  in  the  minutiae  of  the  Latin  and 
Greek  languages.  In  his  view,  no  error  was 
trivial.  With  scrupulous  care  he  exposed  the 
slightest  mistake  of  a  pupil.  He  was  not, 
however,  so  engrossed  in  looking  at  the  trees, 
that  he  failed  to  see  the  grove. 

He  did  find  a  pleasure  in  interpreting  the 
Greek  particles.  When  he  first  studied  the 
Greek  accents,  he  was  transported  with  delight, 
as  if  he  had  been  reading  a  romance ;  but  he 
also  looked  beyond  the  points  and  the  declen- 
sions and  the  various  readings.  It  was  the 
thought,  the  principle,  the  theory,  of  the  great 
authors,  it  was  the  living  sentiment  as  well 


24 

as  the  "winged  words"  of  Homer,  it  was  the 
strong  sense  as  well  as  the  compressed  diction 
of  Sallust,  that  aroused  him.  He  was  interest- 
ed in  the  historical  genius  of  Xenophon  ;  he 
caught  the  poetic  fire  of  Homer ;  his  memory 
was  replete  with  sound  and  terse  apothegms 
from  Livy  and  Tacitus  ;  he  quoted  them  with 
fervor  on  fit  occasions  ;  and  he  was  at  home 
amid  the  mountains  and  the  groves  and  the 
streams  of  Greece  and  Italy.  He  was  not  wild 
in  his  classical  enthusiasm  ;  for  he  had  too  much 
of  scholarly  accuracy  to  be  wild.  He  was  not 
coldly  correct  in  his  interpretations ;  for  he  had 
too  much  enthusiasm  to  be  critically  dull. 

He  also  combined,  in  an  uncommon  degree, 
a  quickness  of  perception  with  a  solidity  of 
judgment.  His  rapidity  of  thought  may  have 
been  the  result  of  his  hard  work,  and  his  famil- 
iarity with  his  lessons;  but  it  surprised  his 
pupils.  The  celerity  with  which  he  detected  an 
error,  analyzed  a  sentence,  compared  different 
constructions,  appeared  magical.  Men  of  this 
rapid  thought  are  apt  to  err.  They  make  more 
mistakes  than  other  men,  because  they  form 
more  opinions  than  others.  But,  while  our  friend 


was  rapid,  he  was  also  cautious.  Perhaps  he 
was  as  much  distinguished  for  prudence  as  for 
quickness.  Naturally  self-distrustful,  he  did 
not  choose  to  express  an  opinion  until  he  had 
carefully  examined  it.  Hence  his  judgment 
was  respected  by  his  pupils  :  it  was  law. 

He  united  a  singular  devotion  to  classical 
literature  with  a  general  interest  in  scholarly 
pursuits  and  the  affairs  of  life.  By  no  means 
was  he  a  mere  student  of  the  Latin  and  Greek 
languages.  He  was  not  ill  acquainted  with 
theology.  He  was  not  ill  versed  in  the  history 
of  doctrine.  He  was  not  a  stranger  to  the 
theories  of  political  economy  and  international 
law.  He  had  formed  his  opinions  on  English, 
French,  and  German  history.  He  had  read 
with  great  care  the  poems  of  Dante,  the  writ- 
ings of  Burke,  the  best  works  on  art.  He  was 
not  a  poor  critic  of  sculpture  or  painting  or 
music  ;  of  all  which  he  was  a  loving  student. 
He  knew  well  the  history  of  his  native  land. 
He  was  familiar  with  the  local  annals  of  his 
native  State.  He  understood  the  policy  of  his 
adopted  Commonwealth.  He  had  a  fresh  in- 
terest in  the  affairs  of  this  town.  He  knew 


26 


well  the  dangers  —  such  as  have  been  expe- 
rienced in  Gottingen,  Halle,  Jena  —  of  a  collis- 
ion between  the  pupils  of  a  large  school  and  the 
surrounding  community.  During  the  last 
thirty-three  years,  he  has  devoted  much  of  his 
practical  wisdom  to  the  preventing  of  these 
collisions,  to  the  interweaving  of  the  sympa- 
thies of  the  school  with  the  sympathies  of  the 
town,  to  the  convincing  of  the  people  that 
Phillips  Academy  was  one  means  of  giving  to 
Andover  that  "  good  name  which  is  rather  to 
be  chosen  than  great  riches." 

Indeed,  the  multifariousness  of  his  talents 
for  mingling  with  different  classes  in  the  com- 
munity was  one  of  his  prominent  distinctions. 
While  there  are  some  who  associate  his 
name  with  strict  government,  others  associate 
it  with  generous  friendship  and  good  cheer. 
During  the  last  quarter  of  a  century,  there  has 
not  been  in  his  native  town  a  festival  or  cele- 
bration which  would  not  have  seemed  incom- 
plete if  he  had  not  presided  over  it,  or  been  a 
prominent  actor  in  it.  The  school-children  of 
that  beautiful  town  were  glad  when  they  saw 
him  ;  for  he  was  a  tender  friend  to  them.  I 


27 

have  been  with  him  when  he  was  appraising 
an  estate,  and  he  seemed  to  be  in  a  wonted 
employment.  I  have  been  with  him  when  he 
was  conversing  with  a  widow  who  had  but  a 
handful  of  meal  in  a  barrel  and  a  little  oil  in  a 
cruse,  and  he  conversed  as  if  his  business  had 
been  to  relieve  the  timid.  I  have  been  with 
him  when  he  was  conversing  with  the  Presi- 
dent of  the  United  States,  and  he  appeared 
well  fitted  to  be  a  counsellor  of  the  Magistrate. 
The  foreman  and  the  journeymen  of  the  print- 
ing-office looked  up  to  him  as  a  good  adviser ; 
and  the  conductors  on  the  railroads  sat  down 
with  him  as  their  friend.  During  the  last 
thirty  years  there  has  been  on  this  hill  scarcely 
a  single  funeral  which  he  has  not  superintended. 
This  many-sided  interest  in  the  concerns  of 
life  gave  to  a  large  community  a  firm  confi- 
dence in  him.  This  public  confidence  was 
communicated  to  his  pupils.  They  caught  the 
spirit  of  the  community.  The  vast  majority 
of  them  believed  in  him. 

Dr.  Taylor  combined  a  clear  perception  of 
truth  with  a  personal  and  growing  interest  in 
it.  He  who  would  instruct  others  must  him- 


28 


self  understand  what  he  would  impart;  must 
not  only  know  the  truth,  but  know  that  he 
knows  it ;  must  not  only  be  confident,  but  pro- 
gressive. He  who  ceases  to  learn  ceases  to 
teach.  Every  day,  Dr.  Taylor  studied  the  les- 
son on  which  he.  criticised  his  pupils.  He 
read  the  new  commentaries,  German  and  Eng- 
lish ;  and,  when  he  came  before  his  class,  he 
was  not  only  familiar  with  their  lesson,  but 
some  of  his  ideas  on  it  were  new  and  fresh  to 
himself.  It  was  obvious  that  he  loved  the 
Greek  verb  ;  that  he  felt  a  personal  interest  in 
the  Greek  syntax.  An  offence  against  the 
laws  of  the  Latin  language  seemed  to  be  a  per- 
sonal injury  to  himself;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  he  was  wont  to  speak  as  if  he  felt  a  per- 
sonal gratitude  to  some  of  his  pupils  for  their 
neat  or  exact  renderings  of  the  classics. 

The  scene  in  his  recitation-room  reminded 
one  of  a  torrent  rushing  onward  to  the  sea; 
one  wave  not  waiting  for  another,  but  every 
wave  hastening  forward  as  if  instinct  with  life. 
Every  mind  was  on  the  alert.  Those  who 
were  naturally  quick  learned  to  be  accurate 
before  him ;  those  who  were  naturally  slow 


29 

spurred  themselves  onward  before  him.  He 
not  only  had  a  knowledge  of  his  theme,  and 
an  interest  in  it,  but  a  knowledge  of  his  pupils, 
and  an  interest  in  them.  He  well  understood 
the  nature  of  young  men  :  he  divined  their 
thoughts ;  his  insight  of  their  character  ap- 
peared at  times  mysterious  ;  he  knew  how  to 
incite  and  embolden  them.  He  derived  a 
fresh  esteem  for  them  from  the  very  fact  that 
they  could  be  incited  to  study,  and  emboldened 
to  press  through  obstacles.1 

Dr.  Taylor  combined  in  a  peculiar  degree 
the  factitious  with  the  natural  qualifications 
for  a  teacher.  His  stalwart  person,  sonorous 
voice,  strong  emphasis,  gave  him  one  kind  of 
power.  His  name  had  become  a  symbol  of 
trustworthiness;  and,  as  success  is  the  means 
of  succeeding,  his  reputation  gave  him  another 
kind  of  power,  —  a  kind  which  it  will  require 
years  for  another  man  to  gain.  His  example 
of  punctuality,  energy,  and  enterprise  (his 
study-lamp  regularly  burning  at  six  o'clock  of 

1  Here  the  author  was  intending  to  read  a  letter  which  he  had 
requested  one  of  Dr.  Taylor's  pupils  to  write  ;  but  he  could  not  read  it 
because  it  was  given  him  at  too  late  an  hour.  See  Appendix,  Note  B. 


a  winter's  morning,  and  nine  o'clock  of  an 
evening),  gave  a  distinct  force  to  his  admoni- 
tions. To  all  these  requisites,  he  added  a  pas- 
sion for  training  the  youthful  mind.  He  was 
an  educator  by  nature.  He  was  in  his  element 
when  his  pupils  were  before  him,  and  his  words 
were  summoning  them  to  exertion  with  a  kind 
of  talismanic  force.  He  had  chosen  the  right 
profession  for  himself;  here  was  his  wisdom  : 
he  was  exerting  his  powers  in  the  way  for 
which  they  were  signally  adapted  ;  here  was 
his  faithfulness  to  himself  and  to  his  Maker. 
His  love  of  teaching  young  men  proved  that 
he  was  called  of  God  to  the  office  ;  and  his  con- 
scientious diligence  in  his  work  proved  that  he 
heard  and  obeyed  the  Master's  voice. 

I  do  not  overlook  the  fact,  that,  for  nearly 
a  hundred  years,  objections  have  been  urged 
against  the  rigor  of  discipline  maintained  in 
Phillips  Academy.  In  adhering  to  the  tradi- 
tions of  the  school,  it  was  to  be  expected  that 
Dr.  Taylor  would  sometimes  err  in  supposing 
that  other  young  men  could  do  with  hard  toil 
what  he  had  done  so  resolutely.  But,  while 
critics  repeat  some  of  his  reproving  words, 


they  are  apt  to  forget  that  he  was  a  very  model 
of  patience  in  helping  dull  scholars  if  they 
were  industrious ;  a  very  model  of  persever- 
ance in  explaining  the  text,  and  repeating  his 
explanations,  until  he"  made  it  clear  to  obtuse 
minds,  if  they  meant  well.  He  had  a  rever- 
ence for  good  intentions.  He  loved  the  ster- 
ling virtues  of  his  pupils.  He  prized  their 
moral  excellence  more  than  their  mental 
acumen.  Hundreds  of  these  pupils  confess 
that  he  started  them  in  their  career  of  useful- 
ness, breathed  courage  into  them  if  they  were 
timorous ;  and,  when  he  refused  to  do  their 
work  for  them,  he  gave  them  a  richer  benefit 
in  stimulating  them  to  do  their  own  work  for 
themselves.  He  valued  his  pupils,  not  so  much 
for  what  they  knew,  as  for  what  they  could  and 
would  learn.  He  did  not  love  to  crowd  their 
memory  with  thoughts,  so  much  as  to  enable 
them  to  think.  He  was  careful  not  to  overload 
their  minds,  and  equally  careful  to  develop 
them.  His  aim  was  not  to  give  them  knowl- 
edge, but  to  qualify  them  for  getting  it. 

He  ascertained   in  some  unaccountable  way 
the   circumstances    of    his  pupils.      He   knew 


32 

their  fears  and  their  sufferings.  He  interested 
himself  in  behalf  of  the  poor  and  the  sick; 
he  provided  reliefs  for  them.  He  dispensed 
charities  with  singular  prudence.  He  did  not 
let  his  pupils  know  when  these  charities  came 
from  himself.  He  did  not  tell  his  left  hand 
what  his  right  hand  did.  He  waited  patiently 
for  the  sentence :  "  Inasmuch  as  thou  hast 
done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these  my 
brethren,  thou  hast  done  it  unto  me." 

Of  his  six  thousand  pupils,  it  cannot  be  ex- 
pected that  all  would  love  him.  He  had  a  posi- 
tive character.  He  was  a  positive  character. 
He  spoke  positive  words  :  he  did  positive  deeds. 
It  must  needs  be  that  such  a  man  will  give  of- 
fence to  some  ;  but  I  have  met  men  at  the 
Falls  of  St.  Anthony,  and  on  the  Alleghany 
Mountains,  on  a  Mediterranean  steamboat,  on 
the  plains  of  Africa,  at  Constantinople  and 
Athens,  —  men  who  were  strangers  to  me,  but 
who  gave  me  a  hearty  welcome  because  I 
lived  in  the  house  next  to  that  of  their  former 
instructor.  They  inquired  for  his  welfare, 
showed  a  pride  in  having  been  his  pupils,  and 
expressed  the  joy  which  they  would  feel  if  the 


33 

minds  of  their  children  could  be  moulded  by 
his  strong  hand.  He  can  well  afford  to  let  us 
admit  that  he  was  not  a  perfect  man.  He  can 
well  afford  to  be  judged  by  the  main  current 
of  his  influence,  rather  than  by  a  few  insulated 
acts.  The  great  argument  in  favor  of  him  as 
an  instructor  is  the  general  history  of  his 
school.  When  he  became  its  principal,  it  was 
far  less  prominent  than  now,  although  fewer 
schools  were  then  in  existence.  It  had  far  less 
influence  than  now  upon  the  colleges  and  uni- 
versities of  the  land,  and  was  far  less  conspicu- 
ous in  the  history  of  our  national  literature. 
Often  there  had  not  been  more  than  a  hundred 
men  in  the  academy  during  a  single  year : 
under  his  care,  the  number  has  been  some- 
times nearly  three  hundred.  Before  he  came, 
the  senior  class,  to  whom  the  principal  mainly 
devoted  himself,  consisted,  on  an  average,  of 
about  twenty  members  ;  but  since  he  came  the 
class  has  consisted  of  thirty-five,  forty,  forty- 
three,  forty-eight,  fifty-nine,  sixty-four,  and  sev- 
enty-three members.  The  senior  class  has 
been  the  great  magnet  of  the  institution ; 
attracting  young  men  to  it  from  the  planta- 


34 

tions  of  Georgia,  the  cotton-fields  of  Louisi- 
ana, the  banks  of  the  Ohio  and  Mississippi, 
the  Canadian  Provinces.  Since  he  has  in- 
structed it,  not  less  than  fourteen  hundred  and 
seventeen  young  men  have  belonged  to  it.  Of 
the  men  who  finished  their  studies  in  his 
especial  class,  those  who  knew  him  best  loved 
him  most :  the  reverence  of  many  has  deep- 
ened as  their  age  has  mellowed;  and  not  a  few, 
grateful  for  the  discipline  which  they  once  con- 
demned, have  been  glad  to  honor  him  by  own- 
ing, "  He  has  done  more  than  any  other  man 
to  form  our  character,  and  shape  our  life."  Pu- 
pils entered  his  school  as  boys,  and  left  it  as 
men :  he  was  the  first  instructor  who  gave 
them  an  inspiration  for  their  work;  and,  such 
is  the  grateful  habit  of  scholars,  the  earliest 
benefactor  of  their  minds  is  the  last  to  be  for- 
gotten. Many  young  men  who  have  applied 
for  admission  to  this  school  have  been  refused  ; 
many  who  have  obtained  admission  have  been 
sent  away.  There  have  been  no  factitious 
means  of  swelling  the  number  of  the  students  ; 
no  artifices  have  been  resorted  to  ;  and  the  his- 
tory of  the  institution  has  verified  one  of  Dr. 


35 


Taylor's  maxims,  —  that  the  success  of  a  semi- 
nary of  learning  depends  not  so  much  on  the 
place  of  it  as  on  the  worth  of  it;  its  perma- 
nent growth  depends,  not  on  the  fopperies  of 
its  scholarship,  but  on.  the  hard  work  per- 
formed, on  the  exact  discipline  maintained,  on 
the  living  enthusiasm  enkindled  in  it.  His 
great  arguments  for  Phillips  Academy  have 
been,  the  stillness  observed  in  its  study-hours 
by  day,  the  livelong  quiet  of  the  night,  the 
punctual  attention  of  the  young  men  to  the 
academy  bell,  their  devotion  to  their  books, 
their  living  interest  in  the  great  truths  of 
Christianity. 

While  Dr.  Taylor  appeared  to  be  thus  ab- 
sorbed in  the  academy,  he  found  time  for 
other  avocations.  He  was  for  thirty-three 
years  a  member  of  the  Board  of  Trustees  of 
Andover  Theological  Seminary,  and  the  clerk 
of  the  board.  For  many  years,  he  was  also 
the  librarian  of  the  seminary,  a  member  of 
the  Examining  Committee  of  Harvard  Col- 
lege, a  member  of  the  Oriental  Society,  a 
member  and  president  of  the  Board  of  Trus- 
tees of  Pinkerton  Academy,  and  also  of  the 


Adams  Female  Seminary  in  Derry,  New 
Hampshire.  He  took  a  personal  interest  in 
the  welfare  of  these  two  schools, — a  deep  in- 
terest in  our  colleges,  whose  curriculum  of 
study  he  was  habitually  striving  to  enlarge. 
He  attended  the  meetings  of  associations  of 
teachers,  and  contributed  to  them  interesting 
papers  relating  to  mental  culture,  some  of 
which  have  been  extensively  read. 

Besides  his  various  essays  which  have  ap- 
peared in  the  periodicals  devoted  to  education, 
he  was  engaged  in  the  publishing  of  several 
important  volumes.  In  1843,  he  gave  to  the 
public  a  "  Guide  for  writing  Latin,"  translated 
from  the  German  of  John  Phillip  Krebs.  In 
connection  with  Professor  B.  B.  Edwards  of 
Andover,  he  published  in  1844  a  "  Grammar 
of  the  Greek  Language,"  for  the  use  of  high 
schools  and  colleges,  translated  from  the  Ger- 
man of  Dr.  Raphael  Kiihner.  In  1846,  he 
published  an  "  Elementary  Greek  Grammar," 
compiled  from  a  work  of  Dr.  Kiihner.  Of  this 
grammar  twenty  editions  have  been  printed  ; 
and  he  was  preparing  an  entirely  new  edition 
of  it  at  the  time  of  his  death.  The  German 


37 

author  of  these  grammars  has  frequently 
expressed  his  admiration  of  the  manner  in 
which  they  have  been  translated  into  English. 
Partly  in  consequence  of  the  skill  developed  in 
them,  Dr.  Taylor  was  honored  in  1854  by  the 
corporation  of  Brown  University,  then  under 
the  presidency  of  Francis  Wayland,  with  the 
degree  of  Doctor  of  Laws. 

In  1851,  he  assisted  in  editing  "The  His- 
tory of  Londonderry,"  and  prefaced  it  with  a 
Memoir,  in  fifty-five  pages,  of  Rev.  Edward  L. 
Parker,  the  "  model  pastor,"  who  had  written 
the  history.  Dr.  Taylor's  Memoir  gives  many 
indications  of  the  good  influence  which  had 
been  exerted  on  his  mind  by  his  early  rever- 
ence for  ministers  of  the  gospel,  as  well 
as  by  the  correlative  fact  that  the  minister 
who  had  shaped  his  boyhood  was  worthy  of 
that  reverence.1  In  1861,  he  published  a  vol- 

1  Among  the  many  suggestions  in  this  Memoir  is  the  following : 
"  A  failure  at  an  examination  is  always  humbling  ;  but  it  is  doubly  so 
when  made  in  the  presence  of  one  whom  we  know  to  feel  a  lively 
interest  in  our  improvement.  The  writer  has  not  yet  forgotten  his 
own  mortified  feelings  at  failing  to  perform  an  exercise  in  the  presence 
of  his  pastor,  nor  the  resolution  he  then  formed  not  to  be  found  defi- 
cient on  a  similar  occasion.  How  many  youthful  minds  have  been 


time  which  illustrates  his  own  method  of  teach- 
ing, and  is  entitled  "  Method  of  Classical 
Study ;  illustrated  by  Questions  on  a  few 
Selections  from  Latin  and  Greek  Authors." 
In  1865,  he  published  the  "  Memorial  "  of  his 
brother-in-law,  Joseph  P.  Fairbanks,  a  liberal 
benefactor  of  the  literary  institutions  and  the 
clergy  of  Vermont.  In  1870,  appeared  his  last 
finished  volume,  entitled  "  Classical  Study ;  its 
Value  illustrated  by  Extracts  from  the  Writings 
of  Eminent  Scholars,"  with  an  Introduction 
by  himself. 

From  the  year  1852  to  the  time  of  his  death, 
he  was  an  editor  of  the  "  Bibliotheca  Sacra." 
He  corrected  the  proof-sheets  of  eighteen 
volumes  of  this  quarterly,  and  wrote  several 
anonymous  articles  for  it.  If  the  labor  which 
he  spent  upon  it  had  been  devoted  to  a  lucra- 
tive employment,  it  would  have  yielded  him  a 
large  income  ;  but  his  labor  was  chiefly  a  labor 
of  love.  He  was  frugal  yet  generous  in  the 
use  of  money.  He  had  offers  of  large  salaries, 

thus  quickened  to  nobler  exertions  cannot  be  told  ;  but  without  doubt 
not  a  few  owe  their  first  zealous  impulse  to  study  to  the  manifest  inter- 
est and  the  counsels  of  their  pastor  at  these  school  visitations."  —  p. 
34- 


39 

if  he  would  resort  to  other  fields  of  labor;  but 
his  desire  was  to  be  useful  rather  than  to  be 
rich.  As  he  was  not  avaricious,  neither  was 
he  ambitious :  at  least  he  was  not  ambitious 
for  himself,  although  he  may  have  been  for  his 
school  and  for  classical  learning.  He  was  the 
recipient  of  various  honors  ;  but  he  cast  all  his 
laurels  down  at  the  foot  of  the  academy  which 
he  loved,  and  of  the  cross  which  he  loved  still 
more. 

The  zeal  with  which  he  prepared  himself 
for  the  exercises  of  his  schoolroom  is  well 
illustrated  in  a  brief  narrative  of  the  foreign 
tour  which  he  took  in  1856.  On  the  yth 
of  March,  he  left  New  York  for  Havre  ;  spent 
two  days  in  Paris ;  one  day  at  Marseilles  ;  one 
at  Malta,  where  he  examined  with  intense 
interest  the  scenes  of  the  shipwreck  of  the 
apostle  Paul ;  two  days  at  Alexandria,  where 
he  studied  the  history  of  the  Greek  and  Ro- 
man conquerors,  and  of  the  Church  fathers 
who  there  immortalized  their  names  ;  several 
days  at  Cairo,  whence  he  made  expeditions  to 
Heliopolis,  where  Solon,  Plato,  and  perhaps 
Moses,  once  resided,  and  where  stands  the 


40 

obelisk  which  the  patriarch  Joseph  and  his 
father  Jacob  had  probably  looked  upon ;  and 
to  the  supposed  site  of  Memphis,  where  many 
notable  events  of  Egyptian  history  occurred, 
and  whence  arose  several  legends  of  the 
Greek  mythology.  He  literally  revelled  among 
these  scenes.  It  is  characteristic  of  him,  that, 
exactly  one  month  after  the  day  of  his  leaving 
New  York,  he  was  on  the  top  of  the  Pyramid 
of  Ghizeh.  He  then  hastened  to  the  ancient 
Joppa,  and  soon  took  up  his  abode  for  several 
days  in  Jerusalem,  the  city  of  his  love.  He 
wandered  all  alone,  absorbed  in  religious  medi- 
tation, on  the  Mount  of  Olives.  He  exam- 
ined with  great  minuteness  the  topography  of 
the  city,  and  qualified  himself  to  give  several 
lectures  on  the  streets,  the  hills,  the  buildings, 
both  of  ancient  and  modern  Jerusalem.  Some 
of  these  lectures  he  has  since  delivered,  gratui- 
tously, as  was  his  wont,  to  schools  and  churches 
other  than  his  own.  He  spent  about  five 
weeks  in  Palestine,  studying  the  geography 
and  the  history  of  its  old  cities,  exploring,  as  far 
as  he  could,  the  Dead  Sea,  the  Jordan,  the  Sea 
of  Galilee,  and  gathering  a  rich  harvest  of 


41 

biblical  learning  and  Christian  sentiment  from 
the  places  which  have  been  consecrated  by  the 
feet  of  prophets  and  apostles  and  by  the  great 
Teacher  of  the  world.  From  Palestine  he 
hastened  to  catch  a  sight  of  the  plains  of 
Troy,  the  old  camp-ground  of  Xenophon,  the 
places  where  the  Persian  or  Grecian  armies 
crossed  the  Hellespont  or  the  Bosphorus  ;  and 
then,  leaving  the  Golden  Horn,  he  took  up  his 
residence  in  Athens.  Here  he  obtained  accu- 
rate and  vivid  ideas  of  the  ancient  Parthenon 
and  the  Erectheum,  of  the  Pnyx  and  the 
Bema,  the  quarries  of  Hymettus,  the  shore  of 
Phalerum.  He  delighted  most  of  all  in  walk- 
ing over  the  Areopagus,  and  surveying  the 
scenes  which  Paul  must  have  had  in  view, 
standing  and  speaking  on  that  rock.  He  strove 
to  identify  the  Academy  of  Plato  and  the 
Lycaeum  of  Aristotle.  Amid  all  these  objects  of 
classical  interest,  he  was  accumulating  stores 
of  learning  for  his  pupils.  On  the  ninth  day 
of  June  last,  I  was  wandering  by  moonlight 
amid  the  ruins  of  the  Acropolis,  and  was  ac- 
companied by  a  native  Greek,  who  had  been 
educated  at  an  American  college,  and  who 


42 

explained  to  me  the  manner  in  which  the  mar- 
ble pillars  of  the  Parthenon  were  constructed. 
I  had  never  read  an  account  of  the  archi- 
tectural principles  developed  in  those  pillars, 
and  of  the  manner  in  which  those  huge  mar- 
ble blocks  had  been  so  beautifully  arranged 
one  over  another.  I  expressed  my  admiration 
of  those  principles  and  of  the  ingenuity  with 
which  they  had  been  detected.  My  companion 
told  me,  that  he  had  not  gained  that  knowledge 
from  books,  but  that  he  had  happened  one  day 
to  attend  a  lecture  in  Phillips  Academy,  and 
he  heard  these  principles  described  by  Dr. 
Taylor ;  and  that  I  had  come  all  the  way  to 
Athens  to  learn  what  I  might  have  been  told 
by  my  nearest  neighbor  at  home. 

From  this  beautiful  city  Dr.  Taylor  made 
excursions  to  Marathon  and  Eleusis,  and  to 
various  scenes  made  immortal  by  the  genius  of 
Demosthenes.  He  regaled  his  eyes  and  his 
mind  by  the  sight  of  Corinth  and  Mount 
Olympus,  and  the  islands  of  the  Aegean  Sea, 
which  he  described  in  a  learned  and  stirring 
letter  to  his  pupils.  He  then  hastened  to  the 
ancient  Brundusium,  where  the  poet  Virgil 


43 

died  ;  examined  the  structure  of  the  Roman 
temples,  theatres,  and  palaces  at  Herculaneum 
and  Pompeii ;  studied  the  Museum  of  Antiqui- 
ties at  Naples  ;  made  excursions  to  Paestum, 
where  he  admired  the  Temple  of  Neptune,  and 
wondered  at  the  mystery  of  its  origin  ;  to 
Baiae  and  Puteoli ;  to  the  scenes  rendered 
interesting  by  the  Muse  of  Virgil,  his  favorite 
Latin  poet,  and  by  the  residence  and  death  of 
Cicero,  his  favorite  orator.  He  then  repaired 
to  Rome,  where  he  dwelt  in  his  own  hired 
house  ;  studied  the  antiquities  of  the  city 
from  early  morning  to  the  setting  of  the  sun  ; 
spent  his  evenings,  as  he  had  spent  them 
during  his  whole  tour,  in  making  exact 
records  of  his  daily  observations.  He  wan- 
dered to  the  beautiful  site  of  Tusculum  and 
the  charming  scenes  of  Tivoli :  and,  after  de- 
voting four  weeks  to  a  minute  investigation  of 
the  Roman  antiquities,  he  repaired  to  Flor- 
ence ;  consecrated  his  days  there  to  the  exami- 
nation of  the  old  museums ;  rose  at  three 
o'clock  on  one  morning,  and  climbed  the  hill 
of  Fiesole,  immortalized  by  Galileo  and  Milton, 
by  Lorenzo  the  Magnificent,  but  especially  by 


44 

the  old  Pelasgic  walls,  which  stood  firm  before 
the  foundations  of  the  city  of  Rome  had  been 
laid.  He  then  resorted  to  the  Swiss  moun- 
tains, where  he  was  as  faithful  in  examining 
the  wonders  of  Nature  as  he  had  been  in  exam- 
ining the  wonders  of  Art.  It  seemed  as  if  he 
would  shout  for  joy  as  he  looked  up  to  Mont 
Blanc  and  the  Jungfrau.  Sometimes,  in  view 
of  these  scenes,  he  could  not  be  persuaded  to 
remain  on  his  horse  :  he  insisted  on  walking 
with  his  head  uncovered,  feeling  a  close  con- 
tact with  the  ground,  making  himself  one  with 
the  landscape  that  charmed  him.  The  sunrise 
and  the  sunset  he  watched  from  the  peaks  of 
Switzerland  with  faithful  interest ;  and  more 
than  once  he  has  described  them,  as  if  he  had 
been  a  poet,  to  his  pupils. 

He  next  visited  the  old  German  universities; 
the  great  schools  of  England  and  Scotland,  — 
such  as  Eton,  Cambridge,  Oxford,  Edinburgh, 
and  Glasgow,  —  where  he  formed  many  ac- 
quaintances with  men  whom  he  valued,  and 
who  valued  him.  He  was  welcomed  with  dis- 
tinguishing kindness  by  Mr.  George  Peabody, 
who  afterwards  became  a  crenerous  bene- 

o 


45 

factor  of  Phillips  Academy ;  and  also  by 
the  family  of  the  late  Dr.  Arnold  at  Fox 
How.  On  one  day  he  walked  through  the 

J  O 

streets  of  Edinburgh  early  in  the  morning ; 
left  the  city  at  eight  o'clock ;  carefully  ex- 
amined Stirling  Castle ;  took  a  boat  at  the 
foot  of  Loch  Lomond,  and  sailed  to  the  landing- 
place  opposite  Ben  Lomond  ;  left  the  boat,  and 
spent  two  hours  in  walking  up  the  mountain ; 
descended  to  the  landing-place  ;  took  another 
boat  to  the  head  of  the  lake ;  and  then  wrote  a 
description  of  the  scenes  he  had  witnessed,  — 
the  battle-fields  of  Robert  Bruce  ;  the  dwelling- 
place  and  burial-place  of  the  McGregors  (the 
clan  in  which  he  retained  through  life  the 
interest  of  his  boyhood) ;  the  cave,  prison,  and 
grave  of  Rob  Roy;  the  Grampian  Hills,  and 
other  spots  famous  in  history  or  romance. 
This  is  a  record  of  a  single  day :  this  illus- 
trates the  spirit  of  his  entire  journey.  And  at 
length,  having  weaned  out  all  his  fellow-trav- 
ellers ;  having  gathered  books  and  maps,1  and 

1  After  his  return  from  his  tour,  he  formed  the  plan,  novel  and 
elaborate,  of  four  large  wall-maps  of  Jerusalem,  Athens,  Rome,  and  a 
part  of  Southern  Italy.  The  maps  have  been  beautifully  prepared 
according  to  his  original  plan,  and  used  by  him  in  lecturing  to  literary 

institutions. 


46 


pictures  and  statuettes,  and  relics  of  Europe, 
Africa,  and  Asia ;  having  been  absent  from  his 
academy  only  six  months,  and  having  accom- 
plished what  the  majority  of  scholars  would 
not  have  done  in  twelve  months,  —  he  reached 
his  home  fresh  and  vigorous  for  his  work  ; 
better  prepared  than  ever  to  instruct  his  pupils, 
to  quicken  their  interest  in  all  truth,  and  espe- 
cially to  give  those  biblical  lessons,  for  one  of 
which  he  sacrificed  his  life. 

When  we  saw  Dr.  Taylor  verifying  the 
thousands  of  references  in  his  Greek  gram- 
mars, we  could  not  easily  imagine  him  as  capa- 
ble of  being  transported  with  the  emotions  of 
taste.  But  he  was  so.  During  a  storm  at  sea, 
he  pleaded,  and  he  was  the  only  passenger 
allowed,  to  remain  on  deck;  where  he  stood  at 
the  peril  of  his  life,  admiring  the  grandeur  of 
the  ocean.  Many  of  his  relatives  were  soldiers, 
some  of  them  in  the  Revolutionary  war;  and 
he  had  a  touch  of  the  military  spirit.  This 
was  seen  when  he  superintended  an  exercise  of 
the  fire-engine  company  which  was  composed 
of  his  pupils.  As  he  spoke  to  them  he  had  a 
kind  of  talismanic  power  over  them :  they 


47 

moved  at  his  word  as  if  it  had  been  an  electric 
shock.  At  such  times,  it  was  not  easy  to  form 
a  picture  of  him  as  mourning  over  his  faults  ; 
but  his  friends  knew  him  to  be  a  humble 
imitator  of  the  Man  who  was  meek  and  lowly. 
When  he  heard  the  bells  of  Notre  Dame,  he 
said,  "  This  compensates  me  for  crossing  the 
ocean."  When  he  looked  at  Cleopatra's 
Needle,  and  other  relics  at  Alexandria,  he  said, 
"  These  repay  me  for  all  that  I  have  expended 
in  my  tour."  But  there  was  no  scene  in  all  his 
foreign  travel  which  delighted  him  so  much  as 
those  scenes  in  which  he  held  spiritual  com- 
munion with  the  missionaries  of  the  cross  at 
the  hour  of  worship.  He  sat  down  at  the  sac- 
ramental table  in  Cairo  :  only  a  few  persons 
were  present,  and  they  were  from  seven  dif- 
ferent nations  ;  he  felt  a  union  of  spirit  with 
the  seven  great  churches  of  the  world  ;  while 
he  was  thus  keeping  the  Christian  passover,  he 
seemed  to  feel  a  oneness  with  the  saints  who 
instituted  the  Jewish  passover  not  far  from 
that  very  spot.  He  was  more  overpowered  by 
that  religious  memorial  than  by  any  of  the 
human  monuments  which  interested  him. 


48 

His  piety  was  not  of  that  kind  which  often 
effervesces  into  rhapsody ;  but  it  was  sound  and 
deep.  It  was  remarkable  for  its  freedom  from 
pretence  and  parade.  It  was  characterized,  not 
so  much  by  a  fervor  of  utterance  as  by  a  readi- 
ness to  deny  himself  for  the  sake  of  duty. 
Few  men  have  had  so  strong  a  desire  as  he 

o 

for  social  intercourse,  and  still  have  indulged 
that  desire  so  little  when  their  duty  called  them 
to  work  in  solitude.  From  the  very  first  of 
his  public  life,  the  choice  of  doing  what  he 
ought  to  do  was  the  principle  of  his  conduct. 
While  a  member  of  the  Theological  Seminary, 
thirty-four  years  ago,  he  wrote,  "If  I  have 
learned  any  one  thing  by  experience,  it  is,  that 
the  path  of  duty  is  the  only  way  to  secure  true 
happiness.  It  may  look  dark  and  dangerous 
at  first;  but  its  end  will  surely  be  bright  and 
cheering.  It  terminates  in  peace  and  joy.  Oh  ! 
I  desire  more  and  more  to  know  and  do  the 
simple  will  of  my  heavenly  Father."  As  at 
the  first,  so  to  the  very  last,  of  his  public  life, 
the  same  resolute  choice  of  doing  what  he 
ought  to  do  moved  him  onward.  "  My  duty  is 
to  my  scholars  "  were  among  the  few  words 


49 

which  he  uttered  just  before  he  stepped  out  of 
his  house  for  the  last  time.  He  was  reminded 
of  his  duty  to  himself,  to  his  health ;  but,  as  he 
was  wont  to  sacrifice  himself  for  his  pupils,  he 
repeated  the  words,  "  My  first  duty  lies  with 
the  school." 

It  is  not  given  unto  man  to  choose  the  op- 
portunity of  his  departure  from  life.  In  the 
Litany  of  the  English  Church,  there  is  offered 
the  prayer  for  deliverance  from  sudden  death. 
In  one  of  the  London  churches,  the  supplica- 
tion is  offered  for  rescue  from  sudden  death  for 
which  the  dying  is  unprepared.  We  have  read 
of  military  chieftains,  who,  before  expiring  in 
their  quiet  homes,  expressed  a  wish  that  they 
might  have  died  on  the  field  of  battle,  with  their 
swords  in  their  hands,  and  their  soldiers  stand- 
ing around  them.  On  the  last  Saturday  of  the 
life  of  Dr.  Thomas  Arnold  of  Rugby,  he  dis- 
charged his  duties  as  usual,  and,  although 
slightly  ill,  felt  no  indications  of  any  alarming 
result.  But,  early  on  sabbath  morning,  his  ill- 
ness returned ;  and  it  was  announced  to  his  be- 
wildered pupils  that  "  Dr.  Arnold  was  dead." 
Five  days  ago,  on  the  last  Saturday  morning, 


Dr.  Taylor  appeared  in  his  usual  health,  exhib- 
ited his  wonted  vigor  in  the  exercises  of  his 
school,  visited  Boston  and  Cambridge  in  the 
afternoon  ;  and,  although  he  felt  for  a  time  a 
slight  indisposition,  he  returned  to  his  home 
with  more  than  usual  buoyancy  of  spirit.  He 
rose  on  sabbath  morning,  prepared  himself  for 
his  large  Bible-class,  but  complained,  as  Dr. 
Arnold  had  done,  of  a  stricture  across  his  chest. 
He  was  importuned  to  omit  the  biblical  exer- 
cise, and  to  remain  at  home ;  but  for  a  biblical 
exercise  like  this  he  had  been  disciplining  his 
mind  and  his  heart  by  long-continued  toil;  this 
was  his  most  important  study ;  this  was  his 
chief  joy;  and  we  have  seen  that  to  leave  a 
duty  unperformed  was  not  his  nature.  He 
went  forth  like  a  hero,  carrying  his  New  Testa- 
ment through  the  deep  and  rapidly  falling  snow 
to  this  building,  which  had  been  erected  under 
his  care,  and  according  to  his  plan.  He  loved 
the  very  edifice  itself.  His  pupils  were  assem- 
bling to  receive  his  Christian  instruction  ;  the 
bell  was  yet  tolling  ;  he  stopped  in  the  vestibule 
of  his  academy  ;  his  countenance  was  changed  ; 
he  fell ;  he  said  not  a  word ;  he  neither  sighed 


51 

nor  groaned,  but  ascended  from  the  circle  of 
his  astonished  and  loving  and  weeping  pupils 
to  mingle  with  the  angels  of  God.  Bearing 
the  sacred  volume,  he  had  passed  through  the 
storm ;  and  then  the  door  of  his  schoolroom 
proved  to  be  "  the  gate  of  heaven."  "  And  he 
was  not;  for  God  took  him."1 

He  had  been  a  man  of  deeds  rather  than  a 
man  of  words.  He  never  loved  to  expose  his 
religious  feelings  to  the  public  gaze  ;  but  he 
had  a  cautious  though  firm  hope  of  his  ac- 
ceptance with  his  Redeemer;  and  that  hope, 
we  feel  assured,  is  now  swallowed  up  in  vision. 
It  would  have  been  a  pain  to  him  if  his  im- 
perial memory  had  faded  gradually  away ;  if 
his  massive  judgment  had  slowly  degenerated 
into  that  of  a  second  childhood  ;  if  his  resolute 
will  had  become  sickly  and  feeble.  He  would 
have  chosen  to  die  with  all  his  armor  on ;  when 
his  eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force 
abated  ;  when  his  life  was  well  rounded  and 
complete,  and  when  he  could  leave  to  his  pupils 
the  example  of  a  man  strong  in  the  Lord,  and 
in  the  power  of  his  might.  He  would  have 

1   See  Note  A,  Appendix. 


52 

chosen  to  begin  his  sabbath  in  his  favorite 
academy,  there  to  be  surrounded  with  the 
scholars  whom  he  loved,  and  to  end  that  same 
sabbath  in  the  company  of  the  great  teachers 
of  the  Church,  the  sainted  scholars  of  ancient 
and  modern  times,  his  venerated  and  pious  an- 
cestors, and,  above  all,  in  the  company  of  the 
great  Shepherd  and  Bishop  of  our  souls. 


SELECTIONS. 


SELECTIONS  FROM  THE  SCRIPTURES. 


EVEN  so,  Father;  for  so  it  seemed  good  in  thy 

sight. MAIT.  xi.  26. 

This  is  the  finger  of  God.  —  EXOD.  viii.  19. 

Man  dieth,  and  wasteth  away — .  Thou  hast 
appointed  his  bounds  that  he  cannot  pass. — 

JOB  xiv.  10,  5. 

None  can  by  any  means  redeem  his  brother, 
nor  give  to  God  a  ransom  for  him  that  he  should 
still  live  forever.  —  PS.  xiix.  7,  9. 

For,  behold,  the  Lord,  the  Lord  of  hosts,  doth 
take  away  from  Jerusalem  and  from  Judah  the 
stay  and  the  staff,  the  mighty  man  and  the  man 
of  war,  the  judge  and  the  prophet,  and  the  pru- 
dent and  the  ancient,  the  captain  of  fifty,  and 
the  honorable  man,  and  the  counsellor,  and  the 
cunning  artificer,  and  the  eloquent  orator.  — 

ISA.  iii.  1-3. 


56 

In  such  an  hour  as  ye  think  not  the  Son  of 
man  cometh.  —  MATT.  xxiv.  44. 

Thou  sayest,  Return,  ye  children  of  men. 
For  a  thousand  years  in  thy  sight  are  but  as  yes- 
terday when  it  is  past,  and  as  a  watch  in  the 
night.  —  PS.  xc.  3,4. 

So  he  giveth  his  beloved  sleep. —  PS.  cxxvii.  2. 

Absent  from  the  body,  present  with  the 
Lord.  —  2  COR.  v.  8. 

He  that  spared  not  his  own  Son,  but  deliv- 
ered him  up  for  us  all,  how  shall  he  not  with 
him  also  freely  give  us  all  things  ?  —  ROM.  viii.  32. 

For  I  am  persuaded  that  neither  death  nor 
life,  nor  angels  nor  principalities  nor  powers,  nor 
things  present  nor  things  to  come,  nor  height 
nor  depth,  nor  any  other  creature,  shall  be  able 
to  separate  us  from  the  love  of  God  which 
is  in  Christ  Jesus  our  Lord.  —  ROM.  viii.  38, 39. 

For  this  cause  I  bow  my  knees  unto  the 
Father  of  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ,  of  whom  the 
whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is  named,  that 
he  would  grant  you,  according  to  the  riches  of 
his  glory,  to  be  strengthened  with  might  by  his 


57 

Spirit  in  the  inner  man ;  that  Christ  may  dwell 
in  your  hearts  by  faith  ;  that  ye,  being  rooted 
and  grounded  in  love,  may  be  able  to  compre- 
hend with  all  saints  what  is  the  breadth  and 
length  and  depth  and  height ;  and  to  know  the 
love  of  Christ,  which  passeth  knowledge,  that  ye 
might  be  filled  with  all  the  fulness  of  God.  — 

EPH.  iii.  14-19. 

When  this  corruptible  shall  have  put  on  incor- 
ruption,  and  this  mortal  shall  have  put  on  im- 
mortality, then  shall  be  brought  to  pass  the 
saying  that  is  written,  Death  is  swallowed  up  in 
victory.  Thanks  be  to  God,  which  giveth  us 
the  victory  through  our  Lord  Jesus  Christ. — 

i  COR.  xv.  54,  57. 

This  is  life  eternal,  that  they  might  know  thee 
the  only  true  God,  and  Jesus  Christ  whom  thou 
hast  sent.  —  JOHN  xvii.  3. 

Father,  I  will  that  they  whom  thou  hast  given 
me  be  with  me  where  I  am,  that  they  may  be- 
hold my  glory  which  thou  hast  given  me.  — 

JOHN  xvii.  24. 

He  that  overcometh  shall  inherit  all  things.  — 

REV.  xxi.  7. 


Him  that  overcometh  will  I  make  a  pillar  in 
the  temple  of  my  God,  and  lie  shall  go  no  more 

OUt. REV.  iii.  12. 

And  so  shall  we   ever  be   WITH  THE   LORD. 
Wherefore    comfort   one    another   with    these 

WOrds. i  THESS.  iv.  17,  1 8. 


SERMON 


SERMON. 


"  Knowest  thou  that  the  Lord  will  take  away  thy  master  from  thy 
head  to-day  ?  "  —  2  KINGS  ii.  3. 

WITHOUT  mention  of  father,  mother,  or  de- 
scent, Elijah  the  prophet  is  abruptly  projected 
into  history,  in  the  prime  of  his  life,  by  the  an- 
nouncement, —  "  And  Elijah  the  Tishbite  said." 

When  the  evening  of  his  work-day  had  come, 
—  a  work-day  spent  in  quiet  chambers,  royal 
streets,  and  the  solitary  wilderness,  —  the  in- 
spired historian  invites  us,  as  it  were,  to  a  coro- 
nation, to  witness  one  of  the  sublhnest  and  most 
significant  events  which  Divine  Grace  ever  per- 
mitted the  eyes  of  man  to  look  upon,  —  the  sud- 
den translation  to  heaven,  in  blazing  chariot 
and  horses  of  fire,  in  the  midst  of  flaming 

NOTE.  —  This  sermon  was  preached  at  the  chapel  of  the  theological 
seminary,  on  the  sabbath  following  the  death  of  Dr.  Taylor. 


62 


clouds  and  tempest  and  whirlwind,  of  a  man 
living  and  moving  in  the  fulness  of  his  labors 
and  his  strength.  Like  an  apparition  he  ap- 
peared upon  the  scene  of  action :  as  suddenly 
he  left  it. 

In  the  verse  to  which  your  attention  has  been 
called  are  included  two  main  points  in  the  nar- 
rative of  the  last  days  of  Elijah,  —  the  plan  of 
the  Lord  in  the  events,  and  the  suddenness  of 
the  prophet's  removal. 

"  Knowest  thou  that  the  Lord  will  take  away 
thy  master  from  thy  head  to-day?  ' 

The  first  lesson  taught  us,  is  to  learn  to  look 
upon  death  as  God's  appointment,  in  wisdom  and 
in  love,  and  not  as  a  fatality. 

What  is  the  time  of  death  ?  Is  it  any  fixed 
and  certain  time  ?  Is  it  confined  to  infancy,  to 
middle  life,  or  to  old  age  ?  Look  at  the  burial- 
grounds.  Are  all  graves  of  the  same  length  ? 
Are  all  men  sure  that  they  shall  have  timely 
warning  given  by  wasting  sickness,  by  waning 
strength,  by  signs  of  danger?  No  man  can  tell 
whether  death  will  strike  him  with  the  quick- 
ness of  lightning,  or  threaten  often,  and  delay 
long.  If  there  be  a  time  to  die,  and  yet  that 


time  be  wholly  unknown  to  us,  and  is  beyond 
our  control,  with  whom  is  the  power  of  its  ap- 
pointment? The  time  of  death,  like  the  time 
of  life,  is  dependent  upon  the  Author  and  Lord 
of  life.  "  Thou  sendest  forth  thy  Spirit,  we  are 
created :  thou  takest  away  our  breath,  we  die, 
and  return  to  the  dust." 

There  is  a  time  to  die ;  and  that  time  is 
lodged,  where  alone  it  can  be  safely  lodged,  in 
the  hands  of  Him  without  whom  there  could 
be  no  life  and  no  death.  Since  it  belongs  to 
Infinite  Wisdom  and  Infinite  Love  to  appoint 
the  time  of  death,  we  may  be  glad  in  the 
thought,  that,  coming  by  divine  appointment,  it 
comes  when  it  should  and  as  it  should.  In  this 
conclusion,  let  us  take  up  our  permanent  rest. 

Without  dwelling  longer  upon  this  point,  let 
us  pass  on  to  some  of  the  lessons  taught  us  by 
the  suddenness  of  removal  from  earth. 

A  near  view  of  heaven  is  given  in  sudden 
deaths  among  God's  children.  This  is  one 
reason  that  should  make  the  sudden  death  of  a 
Christian  very  precious  in  our  sight.  Doubtless 
the  home  of  the  Blessed  was  brought  very  near 
to  the  mental  vision  of  the  fifty  and  one  who 


64 


saw  the  prophet  ascending  in  the  chariot  and 
horses  of  fire.  He  left  them,  as  they  had  known 
him,  in  the  fulness  of  his  energy,  with  the  fresh 
impress  of  his  love  upon  their  hearts,  his  last 
words  of  instruction  still  echoing  in  their  ears ; 
and  in  their  mind's  eye  they  could  easily  follow 
him  in  his  upward  way,  and  behold  him  at  the 
right  hand  of  the  Majesty  on  high,  as  they  had 
seen  him  here,  and  feel  sure  that  the  traits  of 
character  which  had  awed  and  attracted  them 
on  earth  would  find  congenial  companionship 
in  the  world  upon  which  he  had  entered. 

Not  unlike  this  should  be  our  feelings  when 
our  righteous  friends  are  suddenly  taken  from 
our  sight.  We  may  trace  their  passage  in  the 
heavenly  flight :  it  seems  as  if  the  sky  were  held 
back  for  us  by  unseen  hands,  that  we  might  fol- 
low with  our  gaze  the  transfigured  ones  within 
the  veil ;  and,  through  the  blessed  offices  of 
memory  and  imagination,  we  seem  to  see  them 
still,  as  we  knew  them  in  all  that  was  noble, 
entered  upon  the  joyful  employments  of  their 
blessed  life.  Can  impressions  of  this  kind  be 
so  strong  when  our  loved  ones  have  wasted  by 
sickness,  and  become  weakened  by  infirmities  ? 


True,  they  then  teach  us  by  their  faith,  their  pa- 
tience, their  resignation.  Their  passive  virtues 
shine  with  a  heavenly  lustre  ;  but  still  there  has 
been  a  change  :  the  active  energies  of  their 
former  days  have  been  suspended;  that  which 
made  them  unwearied  messengers  of  charity 
and  duty  has  long  since  been  yielded  up  to 
slow  decay.  We  have  almost  forgotten  how 
they  looked  in  health;  and  our  latest  remem- 
brances of  them  are  associated  with  their  weak- 
ness and  their  disease ;  and  we  ask  ourselves, 
Can  this  be  the  bright  and  happy  being  of  for- 
mer days  that  has  entered  into  rest? 

The  sick-chamber  has  been  the  ante-chamber 
to  heaven ;  but  how  sombre  it  was  for  the  suf- 
fering that  was  endured  there!  Our  very 
thoughts  of  the  heavenly  mansions  are  tinged 
with  the  gloom  that  has  hung  over  us  for  weeks 
and  months  in  the  sick-room.  Not  so  when 
death  comes  to  seal  the  eyes  with  a  flash,  before 
they  are  waxed  dim  with  age  and  disease,  or  the 
natural  force  is  abated.  Then  our  last  remem- 
brances of  the  departed  are  of  all  that  they 
were  in  the  fulness  of  their  moral  strength  and 
beauty.  All  that  was  in  them  of  purity  and 


66 


loveliness,  and  variety  of  character,  lives  with 
us  as  a  type  and  memorial  of  the  spirit  of  the 
angelic  life. 

Again :  the  sudden  death  of  those  who  are 
prepared  to  die  saves  them  from  much  distress 
and  misery.  To  the  surviving  friends  the  sud- 
den shock  is  indeed  appalling.  We  may  not 
attempt  to  describe  it.  The  plans  of  life  formed 
by  many  whose  lives  were  interwoven  with 
those  who  are  gone  so  quickly  are  instantane- 
ously prostrated  ;  hopes  are  scattered ;  a  blight 
is  cast  upon  every  scene  and  object  familiar  to 
the  departed.  Every  thing  seems  to  conspire 
to  aggravate  the  severity  of  the  stroke.  But  if, 
for  a  moment,  we  can  forget  our  grief,  and  think 
of  our  friends  in  their  abode  in  glory,  what  a 
soothing  to  our  wounded  spirits  comes  to  us  in 
our  forgetfulness  of  self  and  remembrance  of 
them  !  Death  has  come  suddenly ;  but  from 
how  much  sorrow  and  pain,  how  much  lingering 
anguish,  how  many  sleepless  nights  and  weari- 
some days,  have  the  departed  been  saved ! 
Death  has  come  suddenly :  it  was  the  shock 
of  a  moment.  Is  that  to  be  weighed  against 
the  agonies  of  weeks,  of  months,  of  years?  In 


67 

the  tenderness  of  our  grief,  we  think  of  how 
much  happiness  we  meant  for  them ;  but  let  us 
not  forget,  that,  though  happiness  might  have 
been,  misery,  too,  might  have  been,  had  life  con- 
tinued. Let  not  our  ^hearts  be  troubled. 
When  we  speak  of  what  might  have  been,  we 
only  declare  our  most  profound  ignorance. 
We  do  not  know  what  might  have  been.  God 
knows,  and  God  alone.  God  knows  from  what 
sundering  of  cherished  ties,  what  tears  and 
groans  of  agonized  friends,  what  anxieties  con- 
cerning those  who  must  be  left,  from  what  bit- 
terness of  death,  the  loved  ones  have  been 
spared. 

It  is  often  the  experience  of  those  whom  God 
has  blessed  with  abounding  vitality,  that  their 
love  of  and  hold  on  life  is  so  strong,  that,  while 
they  may  not  dread  the  world  to  come,  yet  nat- 
urally, and  in  a  peculiar  manner,  they  fear  the 
moment  of  dissolution  ;  and,  with  all  the  joys  of 
a  certain  heaven  before  their  vision,  the  thought 
of  the  passage  to  the  other  world  fills  the  mind 
with  terror.  It  is  not  death,  but  dying,  that  they 
shrink  from :  it  is  a  dread  independent  of  any 
fears  for  their  future  destiny.  The  pain  of  part- 


68 


ing  with  one's  possessions  and  darling  objects 
of  earthly  satisfaction  is  not  so  terrible  as  the 
dread  of  something  hitherto  utterly  unknown. 
It  is  a  leap  in  the  dark,  a  plunge  into  a  new 
element,  we  know  not  what.  True,  death  is 
not  a  leap,  a  plunge,  a  sudden  transition  ;  but  it 
seems  so;  and  the  seeming  has  all  the  terror  of 
a  reality. 

From  this  fearful  trial  of  the  good  man's  faith 
does  sudden  death  exempt  him.  No  spectres 
haunt  him  for  a  moment.  The  old,  old  fear 
has  not  a  chance  of  tormenting  him.  He  does 
not  even  see  the  dark  valley :  there  is  no  vision 
of  the  rod  and  the  staff.  He  needs  none.  His 
last  look  was  one  of  happy  life  upon  beautiful 
life :  the  next  look  is  upon  the  beauteous  King 
and  Lord  of  life. 

At  one  moment  he  was  conscious  of  living : 
the  next  he  was  conscious  of  life,  —  eternal  life. 
Now  he  has  no  thought  of  dying:  in  the  twink- 
ling of  an  eye,  not  conscious  of  having  died, 
he  suddenly  finds  himself  alive  from  the  dead. 
This  moment,  he  was  awake  here:  the  next,  he 
has  awaked  in  His  likeness,  satisfied.  Happy, 
happy  he  to  have  been  borne  so  quickly  on 


angels'  wings  across  those  turbid  waves  which 
so  many  of  the  righteous  must  slowly,  wearily 
ford  with  fear  and  trembling! 

In  the  solemn  and  beautiful  Litany  of  the 
Episcopal  Church,  Sunday  after  Sunday  goes 
up  the  prayer,  "From  sudden  death,  good  Lord 
deliver  us."  There  must  be  many  who  repeat 
it,,  who  yet  cannot  heartily  offer  it.  If  sudden 
death,  so  painless,  bringing  heaven  so  quickly 
nigh,  be  the  relief  and  blessing  that  we  have 
seen  it  to  be,  why  should  we  pray  the  good 
Lord  to  deliver  us  from  it?  "  If  I  am  living  a 
humble  Christian  life,"  says  the  child  of  God; 
u  if  I  am  prepared  to  meet  my  Master  at  any 
hoar,  be  it  at  the  cock-crowing,  or  in  the  morn- 
ing, or  at  the  eventide ;  if  the  prevalent  frame  of 
my  mind  is  heavenly  and  spiritual,  —  then,  in- 
stead of  praying,  '  From  sudden  death,  good 
Lord  deliver  me,'  I  would  rather  beg  my  Mas- 
ter to  spare  me  the  slow  decay,  the  lingering 
disease,  the  tearful  farewell,  the  final  struggle  in 
dissolution.  I  would  ask  him  to  let  me  work 
at  my  post  till  the  very  last  moment,  and  then 
close  my  life  with  my  labors." 

But  God  needs  his  suffering  witnesses,  as  well 


70 

as  his  valiant  defenders  of  the  faith.  Let  us 
remember  Paul's  words,  and  see  to  it  that 
"  Christ  shall  be  magnified  in  our  bodies,  wheth- 
er it  be  by  life  or  by  death  ;  "  that  we  glorify  him 
in  the  pains  of  a  lingering  illness,  or  in  a  life 
conformed  to  his  law  of  life. 

But,  my  friends,  why  this  almost  universal 
shrinking  from  death  ?  Is  death  always  such 
a  fearful  talisman  ?  Is  every  thing  terrific,  and 
is  nothing  bright  and  fair,  in  the  world  to  come  ? 
Why  this  fear  ?  Is  not  this  the  secret  ?  —  the 
consciousness  of  being  so  ill  prepared  for  death. 
To  be 

"  Cut  off  even  in  the  blossom  of  our  sins, 
No  reckoning  made,  but  sent  to  our  account 
With  all  our  imperfections  on  our  heads  :  " 

this  is  what  stares  us  in  the  face,  and  prevents 
us  from  reading  our  titles  to  heaven  clear. 
Providence  does  indeed  startle  us  into  thinking 
from  time  to  time,  by  snatching  some  neighbor 
or  friend  in  an  instant.  We  ask  the  question, 
"  Why  was  it  not  I  ?  "  The  warning  comes 
thrillingly  to  our  hearts,  "  Be  ye  also  ready.  .  .  . 
Let  him  who  thinketh  he  standeth  take  heed 


lest  he  fall."  Our  minds  are  solemnized.  We 
are  more  prayerful  for  a  time.  Men  begin  to 
pray  who  never  prayed  before.  Resolutions  to 
serve  God  and  seek  heaven  are  formed.  But 
the  terror  soon  passes;^  and  with  the  fleeting 
emotion  fades  the  resolution,  and  in  a  little  time 
we  are  living  on  in  the  same  old  ways  as  if 
Providence  had  never  arrested  our  dull  ears  by 
his  warning  voice. 

We  often  thank  our  heavenly  Father  for  pre- 
serving us  from  "  dangers  unseen."  Do  we  suf- 
ficiently comprehend  what  that  thanksgiving 
covers  ?  Think  of  the  many  causes  of  death, 
latent  within  us,  and  lurking  without  us  ;  of  the 
many  avenues  of  our  daily  walk  by  which  the 
breath  of  life  may  be  expelled  ;  of  the  frailty  of 
our  complex  frame,  with  its  thousand  delicate 
strings. 

"  We  die,  if  one  be  gone  ; 
Strange  that  a  harp  of  a  thousand  strings 
Should  keep  in  tune  so  long  !  w    • 

There  are  a  thousand  snares  and  pitfalls  for  our 
souls  ;  but  reflect  upon  the  hidden  deaths  that 
lie  secreted  all  around  us  to  assail  our  bodies. 


72 

The  scratch  of  a  pin,  the  sting  of  an  insect, 
the  turn  of  a  wheel,  the  slipping  of  a  belt,  the 
misplacing  of  a  switch,  the  loss  of  a  screw,  a 
bolt  from  the  clouds,  may  send  us  at  once 
from  our  bloom  and  prime  to  the  judgment- 
seat  of  God.  The  bursting  of  a  blood-vessel 
from  over-exertion  may  send  life  pouring  in 
a  crimson  flood  from  the  bowl  broken  at  the 
fountain.  That  very  fulness  of  habit  which 
calls  out  admiring  compliments  for  your  buoy- 
ant strength  may  be  the  indication  of  too  much 
health ;  and  the  insidious,  unsuspected  disease 
may  instantly  still  the  throbbing  of  the  heart. 
What  surety  has  any  one  of  us,  preacher  or 
hearer,  that  he  shall  be  exempt  from  a  quick 
summons  to  appear  before  the  Judge  ?  Would 
that  these  were  the  words  of  rhetorical  exagger- 
ation !  But  I  do  not  speak  them  with  the  ob- 
ject of  arousing  a  blind  terror.  I  would  rather 
excite  thankfulness  for  the  incessant  miracle  of 
God's  guardian  care;  that  the  plans  of  life  can 
be  made  as  if  long  life  and  the  accomplishment 
of  our  endeavors  were  to  be  surely  ours. 

Once  more :  such  instances  of  sudden  death 
are  a  proof,  and  pledge,  and  ground  of  hope  of 
man's  immortality. 


73 

Without  a  higher  life,  man  is  the  great  excep- 
tion in  existence,  —  "the  only  broken  column 
in  creation."  Every  thing  else  completes  the 
design  of  its  being,  both  as  to  its  length  of  years, 
and  purpose  of  existence ;  but  man  *'  cometh 
forth  as  a  flower,  and  is  cut  down  :  he  fleeth  as 
a  shadow,  and  continueth  not."  With  him 
nothing  is  finished.  Who  is  completely  satis- 
fied with  his  endeavors  ?  One  only  could  truly 
say,  "  I  have  finished  the  work  thou  gavest  me 
to  do."  How  few  even  arrive  at  the  scriptural 
limits  of  life, —  the  brief  threescore  years  and 
ten !  It  is  only  when  a  man  sees  that  his  life 
belongs  to  an  eternal  life  beyond  life,  that  he 
can  bring  the  enigma  of  his  existence  into  har- 
mony with  the  rest  of  creation.  In  the  light 
of  this  thought  only  can  we  interpret  the  sud- 
den removal  of  the  pure  and  the  good. 

Here,  for  instance,  is  a  man  of  ripe  mind  and 
a  noble  heart.  We  have  known  and  loved  such 
an  one.  He  filled  a  large  and  honored  place  in 
the  public  eye.  Science  knew  him  ;  humani- 
ty blessed  him  ;  religion  rejoiced  in  him.  Im- 
portant interests  were  committed  to  his  trust. 
He  was  walking  firmly  and  faithfully  in  his 


74 

path  of  progress  and  usefulness.  The  meridian 
of  life  had  been  reached  and  passed,  and  he 
had  entered  on  what  Chalmers  called  "the  sab- 
bath of  his  life,"  —  six  working  decades  past; 
but  this  man's  sabbath  was  rest  in  action.  So 
active  was  he,  that  it  seemed  as  if  his  noonday 
sun  had  been  commanded  to  stand  still.  Sud- 
denly his  sun  is  darkened  by  clouds  from 
which  the  snowflakes  fall ;  and  he  sinks  in  all 
his  glorious  strength,  while  "knowledge  weeps, 
and  the  ways  of  Zion  mourn." 

Yet  is  he  dead?  Has  that  burning  and 
shining  light  been  extinguished  by  capricious 
powers  of  the  air,  while  so  many  smoking,  glim- 
mering rushlights  fill  life  with  their  feebleness 
and  reeking  impurity  ?  It  cannot  be.  Was  it 
not,  rather,  that  a  new  luminary  was  needed 
among  the  golden  lights  of  heaven,  to  shine 
with  a  purer  lustre  still,  and  so  he  "was  trans- 
ferred to  the  galaxy  around  the  throne  of  the 
Eternal  "  ? 

We  may  wish,  sometimes,  that  a  little  space 
had  been  given  him  to  prepare  for  his  solemn 
entrance  into  eternity,  and  for  the  testimony  of 
his  faith  ;  but  let  us  remember  that  the  closing 


75 

scene,  for  the  most  part,  is  worth  very  little  : 
it  is  not  the  last  moment,  but  the  whole  life, 
breathing  the  spirit  of  Christ,  which  affords  at 
once  the  best  preparation,  and  the  best  evidence 
of  fitness,  for  the  final  departure.  We  may 
sometimes  wish  that  the  loving  hands  of  his 
dearest  and  best  could  have  ministered  to  his 
necessities;  but,  so  quickly  did  he  rise,  there 
was  no  need  of  ministering  hands.  We  may 
wish  that  Memory  had  been  permitted  to  soothe 
him  with  her  song  of  duty  done,  and  Religion 
to  stand  by  him  with  uplifted  finger :  and  yet 
there  was  exceeding  fitness  in  his  expiring 
as  he  did;  and  it  was  most  appropriately  ordered 
that  he  should  come  to  the  door  of  the  sepulchre 
where  his  Lord  had  lain,  bearing  the  precious 
spices  of  a  stainless  life,  on  the  morning  of 
"  the  first  day  of  the  week." 

We  may  sometimes  wish  that  he  had  been 
spared  to  the  youth  of  our  country  yet  many 
years,  to  guide  them  by  his  counsels,  and  to 
train  their  immortal  powers;  but  we  will  re- 
turn thanksgiving  that  he  has  been  given  to 
his  country  for  so  many  years.  We  may  mourn 
that  his  great  powers,  which  as  yet  showed  no 


76 


traces  of  deca}r,  should  be  so  early  extinguished ; 
and  yet,  when  we  reflect  how  sad  it  is  to  see 
a  great  mind  breaking  up,  and  a  noble  intellect 
shattered  and  overthrown  by  age,  it  was  well 
that  his  sun  should  go  down  while  it  was  yet 
day.  It  was  a  grand  termination  for  such  a 
noble  life.  It  was  the  end  which,  perhaps,  every 
man  of  powerful  intellect  covets  for  himself. 

My  younger  brothers  and  fellow-pupils  of  the 
same  beloved  teacher,  if  I  mistake  not,  the  2Qth 
of  January,  1871,  will  forever  be  to  you  a  mem- 
orable sabbath ;  for,  like  the  fifty  and  one  stu- 
dents in  the  schools  of  Bethel  and  Jericho,  you 
witnessed  on  that  day  the  departure  from  earth 
of  your  revered  instructor. 

The  prophet  of  God  went  forth  on  the  morn- 
ing of  his  last  day,  knowing  that  the  final  hour 
of  his  earthly  and  troubled  career  had  come ; 
but  our  honored  master  left  his  quiet  home 
without  one  word  of  warning  whispered  in  his 
ear  of  his  sudden  translation  so  soon  to  be  ac- 
complished. 

The  fifty  pupils  of  the  ancient  teacher  came 
out  with  the  sad  presentiment,  that,  for  the  last 


77 


time,  they  were  to  see  the  instructor  whom  they 
almost  worshipped,  and  who  had  given  new  life 
to  their  studies;  but  you,  my  brothers,  —  were 
any  secret  intimations  given  to  you  last  sabbath 
morning,  that  for  the  last  time  you  were  to  see 
your  revered  instructor  in  life  ? 

The  students  of  Bethel  and  Jericho  turned 
to  their  fellow-pupil,  and  whispered  in  his  ear, 
"  Knowest  thou  that  the  Lord  will  take  away 
thy  master  from  thy  head  to-day?  "  Was  there 
one  among  you  who  could  answer  with  the 
emphasis  of  the  mourning  Elisha,  "  Yea,  / 
know  it  "  ?  No.  Is  it  possible  that  among  so 
many  of  you,  not  even  one  knew  that  your 
master  was  to  be  taken  away  from  your  head 
that  day  ?  And  he,  so  strong,  so  full  of  knowl- 
edge and  wisdom,  —  did  not  he  know  it  ?  Truly, 
in  such  an  hour  as  we  think  not,  "  the  Son  of 
man  cometh.  Of  that  day  and  hour  knoweth 
no  man,  —  no,  not  the  angels  of  heaven." 

On  the  upper  terraces,  or  on  the  mountain- 
heights  behind  the  city,  "  stood  afar  off,"  in 
awe,  the  fifty  students  of  Bethel  and  Jericho  to 
watch  the  upward  flight  of  the  prophet:  but 
you,  my  brothers,  — you  did  not  stand  at  a  dis- 


tance  to  gaze  upon  the  final  scene ;  you  were 
near,  very  near,  so  near,  that  you  could  almost 
hear  the  parting  spirit  sigh ;  you  could  almost 
hear  the  fluttering  of  his  rapidly-stilling  heart ; 
you  saw  those  eyes  which  had  smiled  upon 
your  good  deeds,  and  frowned  upon  your  ill- 
doing,  compose  themselves  in  fixed  and  ma- 
jestic repose. 

Only  Elijah  and  Elisha  —  only  "they  two  — 
stood  by  Jordan  ;  "  but  all  of  you  stood  with 
him  beside  the  rushing  steam  that  rolls  all 
round  the  world  :  yet  he  crossed  alone.  The 
waters  parted  for  him  alone :  no  favorite  pupil 
could  bear  him  company  to  talk  "  as  they  still 
went  on."  "  The  aged  Gileadite  could  not  rest 
until  he  again  set  foot  on  his  own  side  of  the 
river : "  our  loved  one  was  never  truly  at  rest 
until  his  foot  touched  those 

"  Sweet  fields  beyond  the  swelling  flood." 

But  his  lips  were  not  permitted  to  inquire 
what  he  could  do  for  you  before  he  was  taken 
away  from  you ;  and  it  was  not  for  you  to  ask 
that  a  double  portion  of  his  spirit  should  rest 
upon  you.  A  hard  thing,  indeed,  to  ask  that 


79 

even  two  morsels  of  such  a  spirit  as  his  should 
be  bestowed  upon  our  young  hearts  !  You  saw 
no  rush  of  flames,  of  steeds  and  triumphal  car, 
when  he  was  swept  from  earth ;  you  saw  no 
mantle  floating  down  from  the  sky ;  perhaps  in 
the  awfulness  and  mystery  of  that  hour,  over- 
whelmed by  the  dread  and  the  suddenness  of 
the  unlooked-for  final  parting,  you  could  not 
even  in  spiritual  vision  see  his  immortal  spirit 
winging  its  way  to  join  itself  in  companionship 
to  Elijah  and  Elisha,  and  the  fifty  students  of 
Bethel  and  of  Jordan,  and  to  all  the  noble  army 
of  prophets  and  teachers  that  now  sit  in  loving 
reverence  at  the  feet  of  the  great  Teacher. 

My  young  brothers,  could  you  have  had  the 
mournful  joy  that  Elisha  had,  of  hearing  the 
last  words  of  your  beloved  teacher,  saying,  "  Ask 
what  I  shall  do  for  you  before  I  be  taken  from 
you,"  would  you  have  asked  for  any  thing  less 
than  the  only  gift  that  was  in  Elisha's  mind  to 
ask  ?  —  "  We  pray  thee  let  a  double  portion  of 
thy  spirit  rest  upon  us."  What  a  rich  parting 
gift  would  you  have  asked  !  "  A  double  portion 
of  his  spirit!"  —  the  spirit  of  unhasting,  un- 
resting diligence ;  of  unpretending  honesty ;  of 


8o 


hearty  sympathy ;  of  abhorrence  of  evil ;  of 
brave  loyalty  to  noble  principles ;  of  sound 
practical  wisdom  ;  of  self-reliance  among  men  ; 
but  of  profound  humility  before  God.  A  double 
portion  of  a  spirit  like  this  for  a  parting  gift ! 
He  could  not  grant  the  gift;  but  the  Giver  of 
all  gifts,  who  so  richly  endowed  him,  can  im- 
part the  same  to  whomsoever  will  ask  and  work 
for  them. 

I  am  not  here  for  eulogy.  This  is  a  place 
consecrated  to  the  praise  of  God  and  the  exal- 
tation of  Christ,  and  not  to  the  praise  of  man. 
But  we  may  not  hesitate  to  render  deserved 
honor  to  them  whom  God  honors,  and  in  the 
place  where  they  honored  him.  You  have  al- 
ready heard  from  the  only  fitting  source  all  that 
can  be  said  of  our  noble  friend's  character,  in- 
fluence, and  labors ;  but  I  cannot  forbear  to 
place  a  pupil's  tribute  of  grateful  affection  upon 
the  new-made  grave  of  my  beloved  master. 
Could  I  trust  myself  to  speak  at  length  of  my 
own  personal  debt  to  him  as  a  teacher,  I  might, 
indeed,  have  much  to  say  to  you  ;  but,  without 
one  word  of  undeserved  or  unfelt  homage,  let 
this  suffice.  I  owe  to  him,  —  and  there  are 


8i 


hundreds,  yes,  thousands,  now  living  who  would 
eagerly  join  me  in  the  admission,  —  I  owe  to  him 
more  than  to  any  earthly  teacher  besides  ; 
more  than  any  amount  of  gratitude  or  service 
on  my  part  could  adequately  repay.  I  cannot 
tell,  no  one  can  tell,  how  much  a  pupil  owes  to 
a  teacher  of  such  unique  qualities  as  our  late 
principal  possessed.  Who  can  weigh  and  meas- 
ure the  amount  of  intellectual  and  moral  force 
which  such  a  man  infused  into  pliant  minds? 
You  may  as  well  try  to  estimate  how  much  the 
food  and  air  of  ten  years  ago  helped  to  make 
the  vital  forces  of  your  body  what  they  are  to- 
day. Many  a  man  of  influence  can  say,  "  I  am 
what  I  am ;  but  I  could  not  have  been  what  I 
am,  had  not  he  been  my  master  in  youth."  I  am 
glad  for  the  present  senior  class  for  what  they 
have  already  known  and  felt  of  his  power  and 
guidance.  I  grieve  with  them  that  they  could 
not  have  been  guided  by  him  to  a  joyful  end. 

From  one  point  of  view,  I  deeply  sympathize 
with  the  under  classes  in  the  profound  disap- 
pointment that  they  must  feel  as  they  think  of 
what  might  have  been  theirs  to  enjoy  and  to 
profit  by  under  his  skill  and  wisdom. 


82 


God  knows  upon  whom  the  mantle  of  our 
risen  teacher  has  fallen.  Pray,  my  brothers, 
pray  that  the  guardians  of  the  institution  may 
see  who  it  is  that  is  to  wear  it.  If  God  ap- 
points the  successor  of  your  fallen  leader,  you 
may  still  hope  to  finish  your  course  with  joy 
and  with  honor. 

Meanwhile,  my  young  brothers,  live  and 
work,  and  I  believe  you  will,  as  if  you  had  lis- 
tened to  a  moment's  parting  counsel  from 
those  lips  that  were  voiceless  on  that  sad 
morning  as  you  received  his  sinking  form  into 
your  arms.  Might  he  not  have  said  to  you, 
"  If  you  would  respect  my  memory,  be  obe- 
dient; be  dutiful;  be  loving;  be  earnest;  be 
pure,  brave,  and  manly ;  be  Christlike  ;  improve 
your  powers  to  the  uttermost,  that  you  may  be 
good  men  and  good  citizens,  as  God  accounts 
goodness.  Revere  and  love  my  successor, 
when  he  shall  be  appointed,  as  you  have  loved 
and  revered  me.  Transfer  your  loyalty  and 
loving  obedience  entirely  to  him.  In  the 
mean  time,  rally  around  your  present  teachers 
in  this  hour  so  trying  to  them.  I  go  away ; 
but  the  school  remains.  Let  your  loyalty  to 


the  school  be  a  motive  to  well-doing.  Be 
proud  of  your  membership,  and  let  no  stain  of 
meanness  nor  rebellion  blot  your  record.  For 
my  sake,  love  the  school  for  which  I  have 
given  my  life.  Let  the  Iqve  of  truth,  the  love 
of  order,  the  love  of  duty,  the  love  of  purity, 
and  the  love  of  God,  be  abiding  principles  in 
you,  daily  manifesting  themselves  in  your  out- 
ward action.  I  go  away  from  you  ;  but  I  shall 
watch  over  you,  and  follow  you,  and  love  you 
still"? 

"  We  miss  him  ! "  My  brothers,  you  have 
briefly,  fittingly,  and  touchingly  expressed  it  all 
in  those  simple  words  you  have  inscribed 
above  that  chair  where  he  daily  sat,  and  around 
which  his  undying  echoes  will  linger.  We  miss 
him  !  You  and  we  are  personally  afflicted. 
From  a  hundred  lips  have  I  heard  it  said  dur- 
ing the  last  week,  "  I  feel  this  to  be  a  personal 
loss."  "  We  miss  him  ! "  That  is  the  best 
tribute  we  can  pay  to  his  blessed  memory. 

Twenty-nine  years  ago,  four  years  after  our 
lamented  teacher  entered  upon  his  duties  as 
principal  of  Phillips  Academy,  one  of  the  no- 


84 


blest  men  of  modern  times  died  at  his  post  as 
head  master  of  the  great  English  school  at 
Rugby. 

Our  departed  friend  has  often  been  called 
the  Arnold  of  America.  But  why  make  him 
great  by  comparison  ?  I  would  rather  choose 
to  put  Arnold  for  England,  and  call  him  her 
greatest  educator ;  and  I  would  put  Taylor 
for  America,  and  call  him  her  greatest  school- 
master. The  fame  of  our  greatest  educator  can- 
not be  heightened  by  calling  him  by  the  name 
of  a  foreigner,  however  noble  ;  nor  will  the  re- 
nown of  England's  greatest  schoolmaster  be 
diminished  by  our  refusal  to  clothe  our  teacher 
with  the  thin  gauze  of  a  name.  Our  master 
was  not  Arnold ;  and  yet  one  is  surprised  to 
find  so  many  points  of  resemblance  between 
these  two  representative  teachers  ;  and  we  are 
almost  forced  to  conclude,  that,  in  the  character 
of  all  true  educators,  there  must,  of  a  necessity, 
be  striking  similarities. 

Like  Arnold,  he  began  his  great  life-work  at 
about  thirty  years  of  age. 

Like  Arnold,  he  had  great  intensity  of  phys- 
ical life,  which  made  labor  a  positive  pleasure 
to  him. 


Like  Arnold,  he  was  eminently  fitted  by  na- 
ture for  his  great  work,  in  his  love  for  impart- 
ing instruction.  His  vigor  of  spirits  enabled 
him  to  deal  with  the  young  and  the  old ;  and, 
from  his  own  lofty  sense  pf  noble  living,  he  felt 
the  need  of  introducing  high  principles  of  ac- 
tion into  the  entire  school-life. 

Like  Arnold's,  the  school  seemed  to  be  en- 
tirely dependent  on  the  head  master.  The 
institution  was  penetrated  with  his  spirit.  The 
school  and  the  man  were  identical.  Fathers 
as  often  spoke  of  sending  their  boys  to  Dr. 
Taylor,  as  of  sending  them  to  Phillips  Acad- 
emy. And  no  wonder.  His  whole  ardent 
soul  was  in  the  school.  The  very  air  seemed 
pervaded  by  his  influence.  He  seemed  to  look 
upon  the  institution  in  which  he  had  spent  the 
morning,  noontide,  and  hale  afternoon  of  his 
years,  with  the  pride  and  satisfaction  of  the 
minstrel  king  when  he  gazed  at  the  battle- 
ments of  Zion.  Whatever  be  the  affection 
with  which  we  remember  the  associate  teach- 
ers, whatever  may  have  been  the  school-life 
itself,  or  the  beauties  of  the  natural  scenery, 
the  one  image  before  our  minds,  in  recalling 


86 


our  school-days,  is  not  Andover,  not  the  acad- 
emy, but  the  Doctor.  And  when,  in  the  time  to 
come,  his  old  pupils  return  to  these  familiar 
scenes  of  their  school-days,  they  cannot  refrain, 
I  am  sure,  from  standing  over  his  grave,  as 
Tom  Brown  stood  over  Arnold's,  with  hearts 
throbbing  with  a  dull  sense  of  their  loss,  and 
crying  out  in  their  souls  as  he  did,  "  If  I 
could  only  have  seen  the  Doctor  again  for  one 
five  minutes  ;  have  told  him  all  that  was  in  my 
heart, —  what  I  owed  to  him,  how  I  loved  and 
reverenced  him,  and  will,  by  God's  help,  follow 
his  steps  in  life  and  death,  —  I  could  be  happy." 
Like  Arnold,  too,  the  objects  he  aimed  at  in 
education  were  character  and  power.  The 
method  of  discipline  to  accomplish  these  ob- 
jects was  singularly  like  that  of  the  great 
teacher  at  Rugby.  We  all  felt  that  he  wanted 
to  develop  in  us  a  self-respecting  manhood,  for 
one  thing ;  and,  for  another  thing,  he  aimed  at 
a  healthy  and  harmonious  development  of  all 
our  powers.  It  was  the  boy  in  the  totality  of 
his  nature  that  he  aimed  to  educate.  Accord- 
ingly, his  method  was  to  seek  to  awaken  the  in- 
tellectual activity  of  every  individual  boy.  He 


87 

told  us  as  little  as  possible,  but  made  us  discover 
as  much  as  possible.  To  be  educated  in  this 
way,  as  he  often  used  to  tell  us,  was  to  be  self- 
educated.  He  made  us  feel  most  sensibly  the 
difference  between  mere  ^instruction  and  educa- 
tion. It  was  the  difference  between  the  means 
and  the  end  to  be  secured  by  them.  He 
seemed  to  teach  as  if  it  was  not  his  business 
simply  to  impart  knowledge,  but  to  teach  the 
way  of  getting  knowledge.  It  took  us  a  long 
time  to  see,  perhaps  we  never  did  see,  in  "  No. 
9,"  how  our  hours  of  study  and  the  reci- 
tation-drill were  slowly,  but  surely,  forming 
mental  habits  valuable  for  any  sphere  of  future 
action.  What  we  had  to  do  must  be  done  ac- 
curately. It  must  be  done  with  all  the  speed 
possible  and  consistent :  this  required  the  con- 
centration of  our  attention.  We  must  be 
ready  with  our  reason  for  the  faith  that  was  in 
us.  This  cultivated  logic.  Facts  must  not  only 
be  collected,  but  weighed,  compared,  and  classi- 
fied;  and  this  taught  us  method.  With  a  start 
in  these  four  things,  —  accuracy,  attention, 
logic,  and  method,  —  he  equipped  us  for  col- 
lege. These,  he  told  us,  were  the  intellectual 


instruments  that  every  man   needed,  no   matter 
what  might  be  his  calling  in  life. 

With  the  dullest  of  us  he  was  patient  and 
helpful,  if  he  could  be  assured  that  we  were 
doing  our  best;  but  for  the  geniuses  of  the 
class,  who  "  got  along  "  by  the  light  of  Nature, 
without  study,  he  had  no  mercy.  He  taught 
us  that  true  study  was  the  very  soul  of  genius. 
Mere  smartness  with  him  was  of  little  account. 
He  wanted  to  see  it  united  with  sterling  char- 
acter. From  genius  or  dullard  all  he  required 
was  faithful  work,  high  principle,  and  gentle- 
manly conduct.  The  business-like  manner  of 
conducting  a  recitation,  the  quick  glance  of 
the  eye,  the  rapping  of  the  pencil,  the  pleased 
look  and  simple  nod  of  the  head  which  fol- 
lowed a  good  recitation,  the  deep,  and  severe- 
toned  "  sufficient "  which  followed  a  poor  one, 
which  he  knew  might  have  been  better,  —  all 
these  little  traits  of  manner,  —  how  often  will 
they  be  recalled  and  talked  over  now  that  he 
is  gone! 

Curiously  skilful  he  was  in  discovering  the 
powers  of  his  pupils  :  he  saw  the  best  thing  that 
was  in  every  one  of  us.  He  was  able  to  point  out 


to  the  weak  boy  in  what  consisted  his  strength ; 
able  to  point  out  to  every  one  the  way  in  which 
they  should  struggle  up  :  but  who  ever  saw 
him  parading  his  own  powers  ?  The  mere 
idea  of  setting  himself  up  as  a  superior  being 
would  have  drawn  from  him  one  of  those 
bursts  of  merriment,  happy  as  childhood, 
which  those  who  thoroughly  knew  him  often 
used  to  hear. 

Like  Arnold,  in  the  treatment  of  his  pupils 
he  was  at  once  tender  and  severe.  I  am  not 
sure  but  that  this  is  the  character  of  the  ideal 
schoolmaster  in  a  school  like  ours. 

We  used  sometimes  to  complain  that  he 
treated  us  too  much  like  boys.  Well !  what 
were  we  but  "boys,"  and  school-boys  at  that? 
But  who  can  say  that  he  did  not  treat  us  as 
school-boys  that  were  to  be,  if  he  could  help  to 
make  us,  Christian  men  ? 

All  of  us  stood  in  awe  of  him ;  many  of  us 
loved  him;  some  of  us  dreaded  him;  no  one 
hated  him ;  and  only  those  feared  him  who 
had,  by  their  own  folly,  disturbed  their  friendly 
relations  with  him.  None  of  us  could  say  but 
that  he  always  gave  kindly  admonitions  and 


9o 


timely  premonitions  to  avert  a  threatened 
danger;  and  he  never  failed  to  call  our  atten- 
tion to  principles  which  lay  more  deeply  seated 
than  the  mere  question  of  the  moment.  It 
was  our  good,  and '  not  his  pleasure,  that  he 
sought  in  the  correction. 

When  the  lips,  compressed  and  firm,  closed 
after  the  utterance  of  one  clear,  unalterable 
No,  we  saw  at  once  the  uselessness  of  further 
parley.  Who  shall  say  that  this  union  of  firm- 
ness, severity,  and  tenderness,  was  not  infinitely 
better  than  the  manner  which  is  both  cold  and 
soft  ?  I  well  remember  of  hearing  him  say, 
when  speaking  once  of  his  austerity,  "  I  some- 
times find,  with  Hamlet,  that  I  must  be  cruel 
only  to  be  kind."  But  his  "  cruelty  "  was  only 
a  just  severity. 

Do  you  ask  me  if  our  master  had  no  faults  ? 
As  Everett  answered  of  Webster,  "  He  was  a 
man.  Do  you  again  ask  me  the  question  ? 
Look  in  your  own  breast,  and  get  the  answer 
there."  In  individual  cases,  he  may  have  been 
too  hasty  in  his  action.  Sensitive  boys  may 
have  been  sometimes  unnecessarily  wounded 
by  his  intense  expressions  concerning  compara- 


tively  small  transgressions.  But,  in  general, 
his  wonderful  practical  sagacity  in  searching 
a  boy's  character  at  a  glance,  prompted  the 
right  word,  the  right  tone,  and  the  right  action. 
Never,  in  his  severest  moods,  did  he  appear 
hard-hearted.  It  was  his  scorn  of  any  thing 
low,  vicious,  or  conscienceless,  and  not  per- 
sonal resentment,  that  sometimes  occasioned  a 
burst  of  indignation,  and  gave  to  his  eye  a  look 
that  penetrated  your  inmost  heart.  But  he 

"  Hath  borne  his  faculties  so  meek,  hath  been 
So  clear  in  his  great  office,  that  his  virtues 
Will  plead  for  him,  like  angels,  trumpet-tongued." 

If  few  expressions  of  affection  escaped  our 
lips  while  we  were  his  immediate  pupils,  what 
freedom  there  was  in  expressing  it  in  after- 
years!  Not  many  months  since,  in  walking 
down  the  street  with  one  of  his  former  pupils, 
upon  seeing  the  Doctor  a  little  in  advance,  my 
friend  exclaimed  in  familiar  phrase  and  with  an 
energetic  warmth,  "  /  just  love  that  man  !  "  I 
believe  that  is  a  typical  expression  of  almost 
every  graduate  from  No.  9  who  lived  and 
worked  worthily  while  he  was  here.  And  the 


92 

reckless  have  often  admitted,  that,  while  his 
rebukes  and  punishments  excited  their  anger 
at  the  time,  they  could  not  help  saying  that 
they  were  treated  with  strict  justice,  and  often 
with  more  mercy  than  they  deserved.  My  fel- 
low-pupils, if  you  have  seen  only  the  com- 
pressed lip  of  dignity  and  firmness  on  the  face 
forever  hidden  from  us,  I  am  sorry  for  you,  in- 
deed, that  you  could  not  have  seen  what  so 
many  of  us  former  pupils  have  so  often  de- 
lighted in  when  we  have  met  him  as  the 
friend,  and  not  as  the  master,  —  the  most  beau- 
tiful smile  that  I  ever  saw  on  a  man's  face,  the 
most  cordial  greeting  possible,  and  the  sincerest 
interest  in  our  present  work  and  future  pros- 
pects. Sorry,  indeed,  am  I,  that  you  will 
never  know  the  deep  undercurrent  of  sympathy 
which  extended  to  all  his  pupils,  and  which 
sometimes  broke  through  the  reserve  of  his 
outward  manner;  for  he  seemed  to  have  great 
difficulty,  and  perhaps  dislike,  in  speaking 
when  he  had  no  real  occasion  for  words. 

All  of  you  cannot  experience  the  pardon- 
able pride  which  many  have  felt  in  being  the 
pupils  of  a  man  so  widely  known  to  the  coun- 


93 

try.  The  feeling  was  excited  the  moment  we 
entered  No.  9,  and  felt  his  personal  contact: 
then  we  felt  sure  that  the  half  had  not  been  told 
us  of  his  ability.  We  were  prouder  of  him  than 
ever  when  the  school-tradition  came  down  to 
us,  that  the  Doctor  had  once  held  a  contest 
with  the  famous  Greek  scholar,  the  late  Pres. 
Felton  of  Harvard  College,  and  that  our 
teacher  had  come  off  victorious  over  the  Cam- 
bridge professor. 

All  of  you  who  were  his  can  recall,  without 
effort,  the  union  of  simplicity  and  dignity,  man- 
liness and  devotion,  with  which  he  used  to  con- 
duct the  services  in  the  prayer-room.  The 
earnest  counsels  that  often  followed  the  prayer 
contained  more  practical  wisdom  than  many  of 
us  were  able  to  appreciate.  With  what  trem- 
ulous earnestness  would  he  sometimes  speak 
of  cases  of  dishonor  that  had  occurred  in  the 
school,  showing  a  deep  sorrow  of  heart  that 
there  could  be  boys  so  depraved  as  even  to 
think  of  the  disreputable  deed  ! 

But  I  must  not  indulge  in  reminiscences. 
They  would  take  me  too  far. 

Like    Arnold,   he  was  a  successful  teacher. 


94 

His  success  was  proportioned  to  his  merits. 
It  was  visible  not  only  upon  the  intellectual 
culture  of  his  pupils,  but  also  upon  their 
character.  That  continual  watchfulness  and 
readiness  of  mind,  that  untiring  energy,  that 
clearness  of  communication,  that  sympathizing 
insight  into  the  youthful  mind,  —  qualities  so 
essential  to  the  true  teacher,  —  were  his  in  an 
unusual  measure.  These  qualities  we  all  sensi- 
bly felt ;  but  the  indirect  influences  which  dis- 
tilled from  his  life,  which  emanated  from  the 
whole  man  in  his  step,  eye,  and  tone,  —  these 
invisible  influences  on  character  cannot  even 
be  indicated ;  and  He  alone  can  read  them 
who  can  see  that  which  is  real  and  enduring 
in  character,  and  who  will  one  day  recognize  all 
faithful,  unseen  endeavor. 

Like  Arnold's,  his  influence  was  felt  as  a 
Christian.  I  hardly  know  how  to  speak  of  my 
impressions  of  his;  spiritual  qualities ;  for  they 
did  not  seem  to  be  detached  from  his  mind, 
but  pervaded  it:  they  were  not  so  much  in 
his  words  as  in  his  life.  A  natural  diffidence 
seemed  to  keep  him  from  much  speaking  on 
religious  themes;  but  no  one  was  ever  left  in 


95 

doubt  what  principle  of  Christ's  had  been  vi- 
olated in  our  wrong-doing;  and  in  numberless 
ways  was  Christ  held  up  before  us  as  Re- 
deemer, Motive,  Model,  and  Guide.  We  all 
felt  that  our  master  wasva  Christian  in  every 
pulse  of  his  being;  that  he  believed  in  Christ 
as  a  truth,  and  knew  him  in  his  daily  life  ;  and 
that  it  was  his  ardent  desire,  that  all  the  affairs 
of  the  school  should  be  pervaded  with  the 
spirit  of  Christ. 

In  these  particulars,  —  their  peculiar  fitness 
for  the  work  of  educators,  in  their  relations 
to  the  great  educational  institutions  of  which 
they  had  the  charge,  in  their  objects  and  practi- 
cal methods  of  teaching,  in  their  personal  rela- 
tions to  their  pupils,  in  the  invisible  influence 
of  their  own  characters,  in  the  Christian  spirit 
of  their  lives  and  labors,  and  in  many  individual 
traits  of  manner  and  character,  —  Arnold  of 
Rugby  and  Taylor  of  Andover  were  wonder- 
fully alike. 

Their  points  of  difference  were  such  as  the 
Father  of  their  spirits  determined  in  his  own 
counsels  when  he  sent  them  into  their  great 
work.  Whatever  might  have  been  their  differ- 


ence  in  natural  endowments,  both  were  alike 
in  this,  —  they  cultivated  their  natural  powers 
honestly,  truly,  zealously,  and  to  their  utmost. 

In  many  respects  so  much  alike  in  life,  they 
were  strangely  alike  in  the  circumstances  of 
death. 

Twenty-nine  years  ago,  at  eight  o'clock  on  a 
sabbath  morning,  with  his  second  son  bending 
over  him,  his  eldest  and  youngest  being  absent, 
after  a  two-hours'  illness  of  heart-disease,  Dr. 
Arnold  entered  into  rest. 

Just  one  week  ago,  at  about  nine  o'clock  on 
a  sabbath  morning,  with  his  second  son  and  his 
beloved  pupils  bending  over  him,  his  eldest 
and  youngest  sons  being  absent,  by  a  sudden 
stroke  of  heart-disease,  Dr.  Taylor  entered 
into  rest.  Arnold  and  Taylor,  perpaps,  hand 
in  hand,  sat  together  last  sabbath  at  the  feet  of 
the  great  Teacher  whom  they  had  loved  and 
served  so  well  on  earth.  Oh,  what  converse 
those  two  will  hold  together,  whom  sympathy 
of  aims  and  work  and  character  have  brought 
into  close  companionship!  Surely  our  loss  is 
his  gain. 

There  was   something  martially   stirring    in 


97 

the  death  of  Arnold.  The  last  enemy  ap- 
peared suddenly ;  but  he  was  met  with  the  calm 
pride  of  a  hero.  In  the  acutest  pain,  he  yet 
inquired  into  the  nature  of  his  disease  with  as 
much  precision  and  coolness  as  if  he  had  been 
questioning  a  pupil  ;  and  his  last  look  was 
one  of  unutterable  kindness. 

There  is  something  even  more  glorious  and 
beautiful  in  the  death  of  Taylor.  Literally  in 
the  path  of  duty;  with  the  last  words  he  ever 
spoke  on  earth  — "  My  duty  lies  with  my  pu- 
pils"—  hardly  passed  his  lips;  doubtless  with 
his  mind  filled  with  thoughts  suggested  by 
the  duty  and  the  day ;  within  the  very  temple 
of  industry  and  peace,  where  he  had  ministered 
as  the  high  priest;  with  his  sorrowing  pupils 
around  him  ;  —  he  breathed  his  last  upon  their 
breast,  and  dropped  into  the  Everlasting  Arms. 

From  yonder  quiet  grave,  from  that  noble, 
earnest  life  which  has  vanished  from  our  earthly 
gaze,  comes  to  all  this  lesson,  —  the  divine 
sacredness  of  duty. 

Fidelity  to  duty  was  his  watchword  in  life ; 
"  duty  "  was  his  last  word;  and  a  duty  was  his 


last  work.  Setting  before  us,  as  he  did,  the 
praise  of  God  as  the  end  of  our  lives,  and  the 
service  of  truth  as  the  motive  of  endeavor,  we 
shall  also  share  his  glorious  reward. 

Another  lesson  of  his  life  is  the  worth  and 
power  of  goodness.  It  is  as  a  good  man  that 
we  can  imitate  him.  His  gifts,  his  opportuni- 
ties, his  attainments,  may  not  be  given  to  any 
of  us:  his  goodness  and  piety  may  be  the  in- 
heritance of  all.  The  success  and  eminence  of 
our  beloved  friend  is  an  irrefutable  argument 
against  the  foolish  notion  that  goodness  is  al- 
lied to  weakness,  and  is  fatal  to  success.  By 
his  noble  example  of  simple  goodness  and 
patient  toil,  he,  being  dead,  yet  speaketh. 

Let  his  death  teach  us  to  live  prepared  for 
the  sudden  sundering  of  domestic  and  social 
ties,  so  that  no  remembrance  of  wounded  love 
may  haunt  us  at  open  grave-sides ;  let  it  teach 
us  to  keep  our  hearts  at  peace  with  Him  before 
whose  unveiled  presence  we  may  at  any  mo- 
ment find  ourselves  ;  let  it  teach  us,  that,  while 
we  are  providing  for  all  the  contingent  events 
of  life  by  insuring  ourselves  against  danger 
and  loss,  we  neglect  not  our  foresight  for  eter- 


99 


nity.  Let  multiplied  warnings  awake  the  over- 
confident, in  vigorous  health,  from  their  slum- 
ber among  the  tombs ;  "  For  in  such  an  hour 
as  they  think  not  the  Son  of  man  cometh." 

How  gloriously  beautiful  was  the  fitting  end 
that  the  Author  of  life  had  planned  for  such 
a  noble  career !  Glory  be  to  Jesus,  who 
brought  life  and  immortality  to  light,  and  in 
whom  our  departed  one  trusted,  his  career  is 
not  ended  !  it  has  only  just  begun.  Glory  be 
to  Jesus,  that,  though  you  did  not  see  his 
ascending  spirit,  nevertheless  it  did  ascend, 
and  he  stands  transfigured  in  the  presence  of 
the  Lord  of  life,  to  die  no  more,  but  to  be  as 
the  angels  of  God  forever!  His  home,  our 
school,  our  hearts,  are  made  desolate ;  but  the 
grave  is  desolate  also.  We  go  there  to  weep, 
and  the  angel  of  the  resurrection  meets  us  ; 
a  voice  comes  to  us,  'He  is  not  here:  he  is 
risen.  Let  us  try  to  banish  our  thoughts  of  the 
dark  coffin  and  the  lonely  grave,  and  lift  them 
to  our  Father's  house  on  high.  The  grave  is 
near ;  but  heaven  is  nearer.  To  think  of  the 
joy  of  departed  friends,  to  get,  in  imagination,,  a 
glimpse  of  their  blissful  state,  will  help  to  arm 


IOO 


us  with  fortitude  to  bear  our  loss,  and  to  urge 
our  faltering  footsteps  onward  in  the  path  they 
trod  before  us. 

God  grant  to  the  deeply  afflicted  among  us 
that  faith  and  patience  may  have  their  perfect 
work  !  May  they  be  supported  by  the  thought 
that  now,  as  before,  there  is  love,  and  love  only, 
in  the  heart  of  God  for  them;  for  God  is  love, 
and  he  cannot  be  any  thing  else.  May  they 
learn  in  stillness  all  the  lessons  he  would  teach 
them !  Taught  by  sorrow,  may  they  know  bet- 
ter than  ever  how  blessed  it  is  to  give  and  to 
receive  sympathy !  When  the  passion  of  their 
grief  has  passed  away,  may  the  enlargement  of 
their  nature  remain !  Cheered  by  the  consola- 
tions of  the  gospel,  guided  by  the  risen  and 
living  Saviour,  encouraged  by  his  saints,  may 
they  be  elevated  above  their  sorrows ;  come 
forth  sweetened,  ennobled,  and  purified  from 
the  furnace ;  and  be  found  among  those,  who, 
through  much  tribulation,  have  entered  into 
the  kingdom  of  God ! 


APPENDIX. 


RESOLUTIONS 

OF    TH§ 

STUDENTS   OF    PHILLIPS   ACADEMY. 


Whereas,  it  has  pleased  Divine  Providence 
to  remove  from  our  midst,  by  sudden  death, 
our  beloved  and  respected  principal,  Samuel 
H.  Taylor,  LL.D. :  therefore  be  it 

Resolved,  That  in  his  death  we,  the  members 
of  Phillips  Academy,  mourn  the  loss  of  a  faith- 
ful friend  and  instructor,  whose  piety,  justice, 
and  Christian  example  have  endeared  him  to  us 
all. 

Resolved,  That  we  tender  to  his  family  our  un- 
feigned sympathy  in  this  hour  of  their  bereave- 
ment, and  assure  them  that  his  memory  will 
ever  be  cherished  by  us. 

Resolved,  That  the  school  will  manifest  its  re- 
spect for  the  memory  of  the  deceased,  and  its 


104 

sympathy  with  the  bereaved  family,  by  wearing 
the  usual  badge  of  mourning  for  thirty  days, 
and  by  attending  the  funeral  in  a  body. 

Resolved,  That  a  committee  of  eight  be  ap- 
pointed from  the  school  to  consult  the  family, 
and  make  such  arrangements  as  are  deemed 
necessary.  And  be  it  further 

Resolved,  That  a  copy  of  these  Resolutions 
be  conveyed  to  the  family  of  the  deceased,  and 
be  inserted  in  "  The  Boston  Journal,"  and 
"  Lawrence  American." 


RESOLUTIONS 


ALUMNI    OF    PHILLIPS   ACADEMY. 


Resolved,  That  the  alumni  of  Phillips  Acad- 
emy resident  in  Boston  and  its  vicinity,  assem- 
bled on  occasion  of  the  sudden  death  of  the 
late  principal,  Samuel  H.  Taylor,  LL.D.,  wish 
hereby  to  express  their  sense  of  the  irrepara- 
ble loss  which  they  and  the  whole  commu- 
nity have  sustained  in  his  decease,  and  their 
appreciation  of  the  great  and  invaluable  ser- 
vice which,  as  a  teacher,  scholar,  editor,  and 
author,  he  has,  during  a  life  of  energetic  activ- 
ity, rendered  to  the  cause  of  liberty,  education, 
and  culture  in  this  country. 

Resolved,  That,  along  with  the  emotions  of 
grief  caused  by  so  great  a  loss,  the  memory  of 
his  kindness  of  heart,  his  earnest  interest  in 


io6 


the  improvement  and  welfare  of  his  pupils,  his 
conscientious  fidelity  and  devotion  to  duty, 
and  his  high  Christian  character,  re-awakens 
the  liveliest  feelings  of  affection,  gratitude,  and 
reverence. 

Resolved,  That  it  is  hereby  recommended, 
that,  as  a  mark  of  respect,  the  alumni  generally 
attend  his  funeral. 


NOTE  A.  —  Address,  p.  51. 

After  describing  the  death  of  Dr.  Arnold, 
Dean  Stanley  says,  "  What  that  Sunday  was 
in  Rugby  it  is  hard  fully  to  represent, — the 
incredulity,  the  bewilderment,  the  agitating 
inquiries  for  every  detail,  the  blank,  more 
awful  than  sorrow,  that  prevailed  through  the 
vacant  services  of  that  long  and  dreary  day.  .  .  . 
It  was  naturally  impossible  for  those  who  were 
present  [at  his  death]  to  adjust  their  recollec- 
tions of  what  passed  with  precise  exactness  of 
time  or  place."  So  was  it  after  the  death  of 
Dr.  Taylor.  The  air  was  full  of  rumors  ;  and 
no  one  could  obtain  certain  information  in 
regard  to  the  particular  incidents  of  the  scene. 
Some  of  the  closing  sentences  of  the  funeral 
address  have  been  modified,  in  order  to  make 
them  a  more  accurate  narrative  of  the  events 
as  they  occurred. 

It  was  about  twenty  minutes  after  nine 
o'clock,  on  the  stormy  morning  of  the  29th  of 
January,  1871,  that  Dr.  Taylor  died  on  the 
floor  of  the  first  story,  near  the  chapel,  of 


io8 


Phillips  Academy.  In  less  than  two  minutes 
after  he  fell,  more  than  a  hundred  of  his  pupils 
were  gathered  around  him :  fully  two  hundred 
were  soon  assembled  ;  and,  in  about  ten  minutes 
after  his  fall,  he  died  in  the  arms  of  his  son. 
His  funeral  was  solemnized  at  two  o'clock  on 
the  afternoon  of  the  2d  of  February,  in  the 
large  hall  of  the  academy.  He  had  reached 
the  age  of  sixty-three  years,  three  months, 
twenty-six  days.  At  the  biblical  exercise  on 
the  sabbath  morning  of  his  death,  he  was 
intending  to  explain  parts  of  the  first  and 
second  chapters  of  the  Book  of  Acts.  On  the 
previous  Saturday  noon,  he  conducted  the 
devotional  exercises  of  his  school  for  the  last 
time ;  reading  the  hymn,  — 

"  Show  pity,  Lord  !  O  Lord  !  forgive,"  - 

the  last  stanzas  which  he  ever  perused.  At  the 
morning  devotions  in  the  chapel,  he  read 
the  fourteenth  chapter  of  Mark's  Gospel,  from 
the  forty-sixth  verse  to  the  end ;  and  com- 
mented on  verses  66-72,  as  compared  with 
verses  27-32.  This  was  his  last  comment  on 
the  Bible. 


Physicians  differ  and  doubt  in  regard  to  the 
cause  of  his  sudden  decease,  but  suppose  it  to 
have  been  apoplexy,  or  a  disease  of  the  heart,  — 
perhaps  a  rheumatic  affection  attacking  that 
organ.  It  is  probable  that  he  had  anticipated 
a  sudden  death;  but  he  did  not  expect  that  it 
would  occur  so  soon.  He  had  formed  such 
plans  of  study  and  authorship  as  would  have 
given  him  two  years  of  arduous  work.  In 
view  of  his  probable  expectation  of  a  sudden 
exit  from  life,  we  may  detect  the  hidden  em- 
phasis of  the  words  which  he  wrote  in  regard 
to  the  death  of  his  father-in-law,  Rev.  Edward 
L.  Parker  of  Derry,  New  Hampshire. 

While  returning  from  an  evening  service  on 
the  sabbath  day  (July  14,  1850),  this  "model 
pastor "  was  seen  by  one  of  his  parishioners 
"  in  the  act  of  falling  forward  :  "  the  parishioner 
immediately  "  caught  the-  pastor  in  his  arms ; 
when  he  expired  without  a  struggle,  not  breath- 
ing more  than  once  afterwards.  Thus  ended 
the  days  of  this  faithful  minister  of  the  gospel. 
It  was  a  fitting  time  to  die,  —  in  the  midst  of 
his  labors ;  on  the  sabbath,  after  its  duties 
were  all  performed,  and  at  the  going-down  of 


IO 


the  sun.  Appropriately  did  one  of  his  parish- 
ioners remark,  '  He  served  his  Master  faith- 
fully all  day,  and  went  home  to  rest  at  night.' 
It  would  have  been  gratifying  to  his  friends, 
could  they  have  stood  beside  him  as  he 
breathed  out  his  life,  and  received  from  him 
his  last  messages  and  parting  blessing.  But 
*  what  God  appoints  is  best.'  They  know  how 
he  had  lived,  and  they  know  what  would  have 
been  his  message  to  them  and  to  the  people  of 
his  charge,  could  he  have  spoken  to  them  as  he 
was  entering  another  world."  —  Memoir,  p.  48. 


1 1 1 


NOTE    B.—  Address,  p.  29. 
Reminiscences  of  a  Pupil  of  Dr.  Taylor. 

"  Dr.  Taylor's  manner  towards  us  was  digni- 
fied ;  an  air  of  authority  was  around  him ;  and 
we  all  felt  that  there  was  a  strong  hand  over  us. 
To  come  under  his  influence  was  to  move  into 
a  new  system  of  gravitation :  every  one,  even 
the  dullest,  felt  that  now  he  was  expected  to 
accomplish  something.  He  increased  his  au- 
thority by  maintaining  a  reserve  towards  us, 
which,  indeed,  he  seldom  relaxed  until  we  had 
left  his  care  as  pupils,  and  met  him  as  friends ; 
when  his  manner  became  in  the  highest  degree 
frank  and  cordial. 

"  I  vividly  recall  the  old  school-days  of  fifteen 
years  ago  :  the  exercises  were  then  held  in  the 
Stone  Academy,  which  has  since  been  burned 
to  the  ground.  At  half-past  eight  o'clock,  we 
assembled  for  morning  prayers.  The  moment 
that  Dr.  Taylor  appeared  at  the  door,  we  all 
rose,  and  remained  standing  while  he  ascended 
to  the  desk,  and  uttered  the  invocation.  A 


I  12 


chapter  of  the  New  Testament  was  then  read 
aloud  by  the  scholars,  each  one  reading  in  turn  ; 
and  then  the  doctor,  while  sitting  in  his  chair, 
frequently  gave  us  a  clear  and  pungent  exposi- 
tion of  some  text  in  the  morning  lesson  which 
was  adapted  to  our  religious  needs.  I  can 
almost  hear  at  this  moment  his  heavy  and 
sonorous  voice  as  he  uttered  some  great  truths 
of  revelation,  and  said,  '  Notice  these  points, 
young  men  :  weigh  them  well."  After  offering 
the  morning  prayer,  he  often  arose  and  made 
us  an  address;  sometimes  managing  in  a  mas- 
terly manner  a  case  of  discipline  in  the  school, 
sometimes  urging  us  to  greater  diligence  in 
study,  warning  the  thoughtless  of  the  advan- 
tages which  they  were  neglecting,  and  painting 
so  vividly  the  regrets  which  in  future  years 
awaited  the  idle,  that  we  all  felt  them  at  the 
very  moment.  Occasionally  he  threw  the 
whole  weight  of  his  character  against  some 
foolish  opinion  which  was  taking  possession  of 
our  minds;  and  in  a  few  moments  chased  it 
away,  as  a  fog  is  scattered  by  a  sharp  wind. 
We  listened  to  these  remarks  as  though  our 
destiny  depended  upon  them  :  at  times,  they 


were  stirring  and  powerful,  — always  racy,  occa- 
sionally tinged  with  humor.  The  Scotch-Irish 
of  Londonderry  were  noted  for  their  wit, — a  gift 
of  which  Dr.  Taylor  had  a  share ;  not  indeed 
large,  but  large  enough  to  smooth  at  times  the 
rigor  of  his  discipline.  During  the  delivery 
of  his  most  vehement  passages,  however,  he 
kept  his  eyes  fixed,  not  upon  us,  but  on  his 
desk ;  a  remnant  of  an  early  diffidence,  which 
never  entirely  left  him.  I  imagine  that  he  was 
originally  bashful  in  his  temperament,  until 
experience  and  success  rendered  him  bold. 

"  At  the  close  of  the  devotional  exercises, 
those  of  us  who  belonged  to  the  senior  class 
went  to  the  Doctor's  recitation-room,  —  the 
famous  No.  9  of  the  building,  —  and  awaited  his 
arrival.  The  hour  and  a  half  of  that  morning 
recitation  all  of  us  will  remember  until  the  day 
of  our  death.  As  soon  as  he  was  heard  at  the 
door,  our  mirth  was  hushed.  He  entered  the 
room  with  a  firm  and  heavy  tread,  looking 
straight  before  him ;  opened  the  text-book,  and 
commenced  the  recitation.  He  first  reviewed 
the  lesson  of  the  previous  day,  and  then  com- 
menced the  advance.  Upon  the  review,  he 


was  very  rigid  in  his  requirements :  towards 
mistakes  in  the  advance,  he  was  far  more 
lenient.  In  a  few  moments,  every  one  felt 
the  spell  of  the  Doctor's  influence.  We 
seemed  to  leave  the  outside  world,  and 
float  off  with  him  on  a  strong,  irresisti- 
ble current.  The  thoughts  of  the  day  de- 
parted wholly  from  the  mind ;  we  lived  in 
other  ages,  —  with  our  intellectual  ances- 
tors ;  again  we  were  wandering  with  Aeneas, 
retreating  with  the  ten  thousand,  burning  with 
Achilles  in  his  wrath.  We  were  called  up 
with  great  rapidity,  and  trained  to  tell  promptly 
and  concisely  what  we  knew.  Woe  to  the  boy 
who  professed  to  understand  what  he  did  not ! 
No  matter  how  smoothly  he  could  repeat  it, 
the  fraud  was  instantly  detected,  and  exposed 
without  mercy.  As  I  look  back  to  these 
exercises  in  the  light  of  subsequent  attain- 
ments, they  do  not  seem  to  me  like  recitations 
in  Greek  or  Latin,  but  lectures  upon  the  sci- 
ence and  formation  of  language.  The  ease 
with  which  Dr.  Taylor  handled  an  intricate 
passage  was  astonishing.  In  a  few  words,  he 
pointed  out  the  subject  and  predicate,  detached 


the  connecting  clauses,  and  took  the  sentence 
to  pieces  in  a  manner  which  would  interest  the 
dullest.  The  minutest  touches  of  the  Greek 
author,  the  position  of  the  particles,  the  vari- 
ous meanings  of  the  article,  the  delicate  meth- 
ods, unknown  to  any  modern  tongue,  by 
which  thought  could  be  implied,  yet  not  ex- 
pressed, aroused  his  enthusiastic  attention.  I 
heard  him  once  say,  that,  on  the  whole,  '  his 
saddest  task  was  to  deal  with  men  who  at- 
tended to  generalities,  and  neglected  details.' 
The  tenses  of  the  Greek  verb  quivered  with 
life  and  meaning  in  his  hands ;  and  he  detect- 
ed the  subtile  Greek  idioms  which  enrich  our 
modern  poets.  On  one  occasion,  he  explained 
at  great  length  the  peculiar  power  of  the 
Greek  imperfect  tense  to  paint  or  describe  a 
continued  action  ;  and  suddenly  he  darted  his 
exact  meaning  into  our  minds  by  quoting  the 
line  from  Milton  :  — 

He  scarce  had  ceased,  when  the  superior  fiend 
Was  moving  toward  the  shore.' 

"  Dr.  Taylor  was   not  a  poet ;  but,   when  he 
illustrated  to  us  the  great  poets  of  antiquity,  he 


n6 


merged  his  being  into  theirs,  and  became  a 
poet  for  the  time.  He  made  us  all  hear  the 
murmur  of  the  '  deep  resounding  sea,'  '  and 
the  clang  of  the  silver  bow ; '  when  he  scanned 
the  words,  '  Arma  virumque  cano,'  they  sound- 
ed like  the  roar  of  the  ocean.  Nor  did  he  let 
the  clear  lunar  beauty  of  the  '  Anabasis'  escape 
our  boyish  attention.  I  heard  him  once  draw 
almost  a  volume  of  poetry  from  each  word  of 
Virgil's  terrific  line, — 

'  Monstrum  horrendum,  informe,  ingens,  cui  lumen  ademptum  ; ' 

and  at  another  time  I  heard  him  repeat  in  a 
transport  of  delight,  — 

keivr]  6s  K^ayyri  ye^er'  apyvpeoio  flioto' 

—  when  suddenly  his  face  changed,  a  new 
thought  darted  across  his  mind,  he  repeated 
Milton's  line,  - 

'  Now  Morn,  her  rosy  steps  in  the  eastern  clime 
Advancing,  sowed  the  earth  with  orient  pearl ;  " 

— '  Gentlemen,'  said  he,  '  there  is  more  poetry 
in  those  two  lines  than  in  all  the  rest  of  litera- 
ture.' This  union  of  grammatical  minuteness 
and  poetic  beauty  in  the  teacher,  the  severe  ten- 


sion  of  our  own  minds,  the  rapid  change  of  our 
thoughts,  —  at  one  moment  receiving  an  idea 
from  our  instructor,  the  next  instant  imparting 
to  him  our  own,  gave  to  his  recitation-room  an 
indescribable  excitement.  After  graduation, 
some  of  his  pupils  enjoyed  the  instructions  of 
world-renowned  men,  who  probably  surpassed 
Dr.  Taylor  in  extent  of  attainment.  I  have  ob- 
served, however,  that  they  often  retained  little 
of  those  instructions,  beyond  the  vague  remem- 
brance of  meeting  an  eminent  man  at  the 
lecture-room,  while  they  could  take  up  Virgil 
or  Homer,  and  recall  many  of  Dr.  Taylor's 
comments,  as  though  uttered  yesterday. 

"  Nor  was  he  one  who  could  be  described, 
upon  the  whole,  as  a  man  of  eloquence.  Yet 
sometimes  he  spoke  to  us  so  earnestly,  that  he 
seemed  to  become  the  mere  means  through 
which  the  truth  or  the  need  of  the  hour  im- 
pressed itself  upon  us  ;  and  never  have  I  felt 
more  stirred  by  the  address  of  any  one.  His 
remarks  upon  our  school  compositions  were  ad- 
mirable, and  showed  much1  knowledge  of  the 
author's  art.  On  Wednesday  afternoons,  we 
were  required  to  declaim  before  the  school.  His 


comments  upon  our  efforts  were  models  of 
criticism,  and  showed  a  great  knowledge,  not 
only  of  our  characters,  but  of  the  principles  of 
rhetoric.  I  remember  once  that  a  pupil  recited 
an  extract  from  Webster,  and  charmed  the 
young  audience  by  a  declamation  which  was 
really  false  and  theatrical.  The  Doctor  said  to 
him  kindly,  '  Granting  your  conception  of  the 
piece,  you  have  spoken  admirably  ;  but  I  think 
you  have  misunderstood  the  author's  meaning. 
Consider,  first,  what  the  author  honestly  meant ; 
secondly,  how  you  can  express  it.'  I  have 
sometimes  thought  that  Dr.  Taylor's  power  was 
due  to  a  certain  balance  of  his  faculties,  rather 
than  to  the  pre-eminence  of  any  one  talent. 
Upon  the  basis  of  common  sense  and  Saxon 
energy  of  character  there  rested  several  powers, 
which  were  always  strong  and  available,  though 
no  one  of  them  was  of  the  very  highest  order. 
Without  being  a  man  of  vast  erudition,  he  was 
an  able  scholar;  though  not  a  poet,  he  was 
often  poetic ;  he  was  not  an  orator,  but  was  oc- 
casionally eloquent. 

"  What,  then,  is  our  estimate  of  Dr.   Taylor 
after  a  fifteen-years'  interval,  when  the  preju- 


dices  and  irritations  of  boyhood  have  passed 
away  ?  Time  develops  his  memory  well :  he 
towers  up  grandly  in  the  distance.  The  impres- 
sion which  he  made  upon  our  youth  was  no 
illusion ;  for  his  stature  seems  as  large  to  the 
man  as  it  did  to  the  boy  :  but  he  is  now  better 
understood,  and  grows  more  genial  with  age, 
as  some  buildings  wear  a  softer  outline  when 
seen  in  the  distant  perspective.  The  thought- 
less and  idle  disliked  him,  undoubtedly;  yet  I 
have  noticed  that,  when  they  became  responsi- 
ble for  boys,  they  often  hastened  to  place  them 
under  his  care.  Like  the  loadstone,  with  an 
affinity  for  steel  and  iron,  his  character  recog- 
nized intuitively  all  that  was  good  in  other  men. 
I  never  saw  in  any  mind  such  a  sympathy  with 
the  right  intention  of  others,  whether  this  in- 
tention was  struggling  against  obtuseness, 
early  disadvantages,  or  the  pressure  of  poverty. 
Naturally  a  ruler,  he  had  a  strong  moral  sense 
of  the  necessity  of  training  the  young  to 
obedient  habits.  In  his  eye,  subordination  was 
the  first  virtue  of  the  pupil  :  he  was  the  stern 
foe  of  the  proud  and  unyielding,  and  some- 
times probably  denied  them  real  justice.  To 


I2O 


the  contrite,  however,  his  heart  warmed ;  and,  to 
save  the  penitent,  he  did  at  times  risk  the 
authority  of  the  school.  I  thought  that  a  few 
took  advantage  of  this  kindness,  and  persuaded 
him  to  retain  them  in  their  places  when  his  real 
judgment  was  to  dismiss  them  at  once.  With 
a  strong  natural  sense  of  the  worth  and  mission 
of  the  scholar,  he  longed  to  raise  all  his  pupils 
into  this  exalted  class  of  men  ;  yet  his  sense 
of  duty  controlled  his  passion,  and  he  aimed 
at  the  development  of  manhood  rather  than 
the  accumulation  of  learning  in  the  pupil's 
mind.  Most  of  the  complaints  against  him 
have  originated  from  the  unworthy.  In  the 
main,  the  public  has  decided  in  his  favor ;  and 
it  is  unjust  to  weigh  a  few  instances  of  con- 
duct which  seemed  to  be  arbitrary,  against 
thirty  years  of  constant  and  increasing  success. 
To  expect  perfection  is  always  unwise.  Some 
teachers  may  have  avoided  his  faults,  but  few 
have  surpassed  his  merits  ;  and  the  youth  of 
our  land  may  be  obliged  to  wait  long  before 
another  such  instructor  is  raised  up  for  their 


service." 


121 


SINCE  the  preceding  was  in  type,  another  of 
Dr.  Taylor's  pupils,  a  professor  in  a  New-Eng- 
land college,  has  written,  "  The  strictness  of 
Dr.  Taylor's  discipline  to  a  well  -  disposed  stu- 
dent was  no  more  disagreeable  than  a  bracing 
north-west  wind  to  sound  lungs  and  a  good 
constitution.  We  knew  that  we  must  study 
under  him,  and  we  were  glad  to  be  made  to 
form  good  habits  of  study.  Many,  like  myself, 
had  such  experience  of  his  kindness  in  pov- 
erty or  sickness,  that  we  came  to  understand 
what  a  warm  heart  there  always  was  beneath 
his  usual  and  natural  reserve  of  manner.  We 
had  our  eyes  opened  to  comprehend  what  and 
how  much  was  meant  by  *  classical  scholar- 
ship : '  at  least,  the  dullest  of  us  saw  '  men  as 
trees  walking.'  We  were  taught  how  to  study. 
We  were  compelled  to  some  degree  of  accu- 
racy and  thoroughness  in  our  lessons.  He 
gave  us  some  insight  into  the  meaning  and 
spirit  of  the  works  we  studied.  His  render- 
ings of  words,  phrases,  passages  of  Virgil  and 
Sallust,  could  not  be  forgotten.  Following,  as 
they  so  often  did,  his  exposition  of  the  syntax 


122 


of  a  sentence,  or  of  some  allusion,  or  his  reve- 
lation of  the  radical  meaning  of  a  word,  they 
were  '  as  nails  fastened  by  the  masters  of  assem- 
blies.' And  it  does  seem  to  me  that  they  were 
models  in  the  way  of  translation.  They  had 
not  only  the  merit  of  fidelity  to  the  exact 
meaning  of  the  original;  they  were  given  in 
English  that  was  idiomatic,  concise,  elegant. 
Had  he  chosen  to  edit  Virgil,  I  believe  he 
would  have  resembled  Conington  in  some  of 
his  brightest  excellences  as  an  annotator  and 
translator. 

"  That  he  was  a  most  patient  workman  upon 
all  the  material  put  under  his  hands,  however 
unpromising,  all  his  pupils  can  and  must  real- 
ize in  looking  back;  and  appreciate  the  fact 
that  his  power  or  genius  to  fashion  and  to  train 
equalled  his  rare  scholarship,  and  his  ability  to 
instruct." 


NOTE    C. 

Anticipating  that  this  volume  may  reach 
some  friends  not  familiar  with  the  circum- 
stances attending  the  death  of  our  revered 
teacher,  and  wishing,  also,  to  correct  some 
slight  misstatements,  we  append  the  following 
brief  details. 

There  is  little  doubt,  that,  for  the  last  few 
years  of  Dr.  Taylor's  life,  he  was  subject  to  a 
rheumatic  affection  of  the  heart,  and  that  this 
was  the  immediate  cause  of  his  death. 

Sabbath  morning,  Jan.  29,  1871,  at  five  min- 
utes after  nine  o'clock,  Dr.  Taylor  left  his 
house  for  the  academy,  to  conduct  the  biblical 
exercise. 

Though  suffering  from  physical  prostration, 
devotion  to  duty  strengthened  him  to  face 
snow  and  storm ;  and  he  was  enabled  to  enter 
the  building  in  which  he  so  delighted  to  labor 
for  the  young.  But  the  lesson  of  that  sabbath 
morning  we  were  not  to  learn  from  his  lips  in 
the  room  consecrated  to  prayer.  It  may,  in  the 
providence  of  God,  be  worked  out  in  our  lives. 


I24 


Just  before  the  bell  ceased  to  toll,  and  while 
many  of  the  boys  were  yet  coining  in,  he 
walked  a  few  steps  into  the  large  entry,  stag- 
gered towards  the  railing  near  the  stairs,  but, 
failing  to  grasp  it,  sank  heavily  upon  the  floor; 
and  without  a  struggle  his  faithful  spirit  re- 
turned to  God  who  gave  it.  Every  thing  that 
terror-stricken  pupils  could  do  was  done ;  but 
neither  the  longing  of  friends  nor  the  skill  of 
physicians  could  call  back  to  life  him  who  had 
fallen  at  the  post  of  duty. 

Soon  the  scholars  went  quietly  away;  some 
to  church,  some  to  their  rooms,  all  bewildered. 
An  hour  after,  the  body  was  carried  to  the 
house. 

That  evening,  Prof.  Taylor  of  the  seminary 
met  quite  a  number  of  the  pupils  and  friends 
in  the  prayer-room,  and  spent  an  hour  in  prayer 
and  appropriate  remarks. 

The  committee  of  exigencies  of  the  trustees 
decided  that  Mr.  Goldsmith,  the  Peabody  in- 
structor, should  act  temporarily  as  principal ; 
and  that  the  regular  exercises  of  the  school, 
except  the  recitations  of  the  senior  class,  should 
continue  till  the  day  of  the  funeral. 


I25 

Upon  due  consideration,  it  was  thought  best 
to  hold  the  funeral-services  in  the  academy 
hall.  At  noon,  on  Thursday,  prayer  was  of- 
fered at  the  house  by  Prof.  Phelps ;  and  at 
half-past  twelve  the  remains  were  escorted  by 
the  senior  class  to  the  chapel  of  the  academy; 
ten  of  the  class  acting  as  a  guard  of  honor,  and 
having  general  charge  of  the  remains. 

In  accordance  with  resolutions  found  on 
page  103,  adopted  by  the  school,  the  prayer- 
room,  or  chapel,  was  heavily  draped  in  mourn- 
ing. The  black  was  relieved  with  white  bor- 
dering and  white  rosettes.  At  the  west  end 
of  the  room  there  was  a  black  background,  like 
the  front  of  a  marquee,  over  which,  in  white, 
was  the  inscription,  "  We  miss  him."  The 
curtains  were  sufficiently  drawn  aside  to  show 
a  portrait  of  the  deceased.  In  the  middle  of 
the  room  stood  the  casket,  covered  with  flowers 
mingled  with  trailing  smilax. 

No.  9,  his  recitation-room,  was  draped  in 
a  somewhat  similar  manner:  the  desk  and 
empty  chair  also  bore  emblems  of  mourning. 

At  an  early  hour,  people  commenced  pour- 
ing into  the  academy  building;  and  by  two 


126 


o'clock,  the  time  appointed  for  the  funeral  ser- 
vices, the  hall  was  crowded,  many  being  com- 
pelled to  stand,  though  settees  had  been  placed 
in  the  aisles.  From  twelve  to  fifteen  hundred 
persons  were  present.  Among  the  audience 
were  many  alumni,  and  other  gentlemen  of  dis- 
tinction in  various  walks  of  life.  The  speaker's 
desk  was  covered  with  black ;  and  on  its  front 
were  a  cross  and  a  crown  of  beautiful  flowers. 

The  Lockhart  Society  of  the  Theological 
Seminary  began  the  services  by  singing.  Prof. 
J.  L.  Taylor  next  read  the  selections  of  Scrip- 
ture found  on  page  55,  and  offered  an  earnest 
prayer.  The  choir  then  sung  - 

"  Why  do  we  mourn  departed  friends  ?  " 

after  which  the  address  by  Prof.  Park,  which 
opens  this  volume,  was  listened  to  with  the 
deepest  interest.  The  closing  prayer  was 
offered  by  Prof.  Noyes  of  Dartmouth  College ; 
then  an  appropriate  hymn  was  sung,  and  the 
benediction  pronounced ;  after  which  a  proces- 
sion of  great  length  was  formed  in  front  of  the 
building. 

First  the  members  of   the  school,  next  the 


127 

hearse  and  relatives  of  the  deceased.  After  the 
relatives  came  the  teachers,  the  senior  class, 
alumni,  and  other  friends.  The  services  at  the 
grave  were  very  short,  and  were  conducted  by 
Pres.  Smith  of  Dartmouth  College. 

After  the  funeral,  the  alumni  met  at  the 
academy,  and  appointed  a  committee  to  take 
into  consideration  the  subject  of  procuring  a 
bust  of  the  deceased,  and  erecting  a  monument 
to  his  memory. 

The  resolutions  found  on  page  105  were 
adopted  by  the  past  students  of  Phillips  Acad- 
emy, at  a  meeting  held  in  Boston  on  the 
Wednesday  preceding  the  day  of  the  funeral. 

Many  thoughts  not  altogether  foreign  to  the 
subject  have  occurred  to  us  while  attempting 
this  sketch ;  but  it  is  not  the  place  here  to 
moralize  for  our  readers :  we  cannot,  however, 
refrain  from  giving  expression  to  the  prayer 
that  went  up  from  at  least  one  soul,  as  our 
loved  preceptor  was  seen  buffeting  the  storm 
of  that  memorable  sabbath  morning :  "  God 
grant  that  a  double  portion  of  his  spirit  may 
fall  on  us  !  " 


. 


m        •    •/••-. 

,..-.':-..   |       .:  •-.--.•.  ' 

:        '       m 

'• .     • 

m&i  • ' ;  is  ;.. 


m 


•^^-M.^.-'; 

m&ii%iim  \  m  •   •  •• 


